
aass._.f \\ 5^1 1 

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THE GATEWAY SERIES. 

Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Professor Felix E. 

Schelling, University of Pennsylvania. 
Shakespeare's Julius C^sar. Dr. Hamilton W. Mabie, 

" The Outlook." 
Shakespeare's Macbeth. Professor T. M. Parrott, Prince- 
ton University. 
Milton's Minor Poems. Professor Mary A. Jordan, Smith 

College. 
Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. Professor 

C. T. Winchester, Wesleyan University. 
Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. Professor James A. 

Tufts, Phillips Exeter Academy. 
Burke's Speech on Conciliation. Professor William 

MacDonald, Brown University. 
Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner. Professor George 

E. Woodberry, Columbia University. 
Scott's Ivanhoe. Professor Francis H. Stoddard, New 

York University. 
Scott's Lady of the Lake. Professor R. M. Alden, Leland 

Stanford Jr. University. 
Macaulay's Milton. Rev. E. L. Gulick, Lawrenceville 

School. 
Macaulay's Addison, Professor Charles F. McClumpha, 

University of Minnesota. 
Carlyle'S Essay on Burns. Professor Edwin Mims, Trin- 
ity College, North Carolina. 
George Eliot's Silas Marner. Professor W. L. Cross, 

Yale University. 
Tennyson's Princess. Professor Katharine Lee Bates, 

Wellesley College. 



GATEWAY SERIES 



ESSAY ON MILTON 



BY 



THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 



EDITED BY 

EDWARD LEEDS GULICK, A.M. (Harv.) 

MASTER OF ENGLISH IN THE LAWRENCEVILLE SCHOOL 




NEW YORK . : . CINCINNATI • : • CHICAGO 

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

DEC 29 1903 

Copyright Entry 
CLASS ^ "- XXc. No. 

l> ^ s- e- U 

I COPY B 



7K 352 1 



, _ CpfYRICfHT, 1903, BY 

'- rAMERICAJjl BOOK COMPANY. 



Entered at Stationers' Hall, London. 



MACAULAY S MILTON. 
W. P. I 



4. 



TO 

THE REV. SAMUEL PENNIMAN LEEDS, D.D. 
K\)is Folumc ts CnscrtfeeU 

AS A TOKEN OF LOVING LOYALTY, BY ONE WHO OWES 

TO HLM, AMONG A THOUSAND OTHER DEBTS, 

A FIRST INTRODUCTION TO THE 

ESSAYS OF MACAULAY 



PREFACE 

This edition of the Essay on Milton has been pre- 
pared with a purpose to make it simple, concrete, and 
interesting. To secure simplicity the editor has re- 
duced the amount of information sometimes presented 
as notes in similar editions. It has been thought well 
to present scarcely more facts than the pupil may be 
required to learn ; and, in general, only such explana- 
tions as are needed to elucidate the passage. 

On the other hand, the editor has sought to give in- 
terest by treating the biography and history somewhat 
fully, presenting the personal sides of the lives of 
Macaulay and Milton as well as the public aspect of 
their work. 

EDWARD LEEDS GULICK. 

Lawrenceville, N.J. 



CONTENTS 



Introduction : 

I. Private Life of Macaulay 

II. European Politics of the Time 

III. IMacaulay as a Statesman 

IV. Macaulay's Mind and Character 
V. Macaulay as an Author 

VI. Macaulay's Style . 

VII. The Essay on Milton . 

VIII. Life and Times of Milton . 



Essay on Milton 
Notes . 



25 
28 

32 
35 
38 
41 
44 

55 
129 



Appendix : 

Macaulay's Essay entitled : A Conversation between 
Mr. Abraham Coivley and Air. John Milton touching 
the Great Civil War . 



139 



INTRODUCTION 



The name of Macaulay is familiar to successive gener- 
ations of school boys and girls who have read the Hora- 
tiiis, and in whose ears Macaulay's History of Eiigland 
has been a household word. With the study of his 
Essay on Milton must go a knowledge of his life, his 
personality, his work, and his times. 

His personality, so vivid, simple, and direct, will fur- 
nish a key to his work, explaining both his successes as 
author and debater, and his limitations as thinker and 
philosopher. 

Few persons are so easily understood as Macaulay. 
There was a perfect openness in his life, and his biog- 
rapher has no concealments to make. His was not a 
complex or confused character. The traits which were 
manifested in his youth are seen to be fundamental in 
his maturity. There is thus a delightful unity in his life, 
his work, and his works. What he was in thought, that 
he was in his words and in his acts. 

We shall first consider the main facts of Macaulay's 
private life and character, then make a study of the 
poHtical tendencies of his times, and then indicate the 
honorable part played by him in the politics of England. 
The subsequent study of Macaulay as an author will 

IX 



12 Macaulay^s Essay on Milton 

thus present him and his work against the background 
of his biography and the history of his times. 

A short paragraph on the Essay on Milton will serve 
as a transition to the hfe and times of Milton himself. 
After the text of the Essay and its notes, will be given 
in the Appendix that dehghtful product of MacsRilay's 
youthful pen, A Co7iversation between Mr. Abraham 
Cowley and Mr. John Milton touching the Great Civil 
War. It ought to be read by the class, for it was a 
favorite essay with Macaulay himself, and will be found 
both interesting and profitable to the student of the 
Essay on Milton. 

I. Private Life of Macaulay 

Thomas Babington Macaulay was born at Rothley 
Temple, in Leicestershire, England, on October 25, 1800. 
His father was in many respects a remarkable man. 
In his youth he had, in the West Indies, seen at close 
range the evils of slavery, and had given up the pros- 
pects of business success in order to devote himself to 
agitation for the abolishment of slavery in the British 
Colonies, which has been called " the most disinterested, 
and perhaps the most successful, popular movement 
which history records." The connection of Tom Ma- 
caulay with such a father and with his associates exerted 
a formative -influence on the character of the boy, which 
may be traced throughout his hfe of perfect integrity 
and disinterested service. 



Introduction 13 

As a child he was remarkable enough to give to his 
affectionate but wise mother the confident belief that he 
was a genius. 

An extraordinary memory was his from the earliest 
days, which resulted in a precocious taste for reading 
and power in the use of words. Very familiar are the 
stories of his mature use of language while still a child. 
"Thank you, madam, the agony is abated," was his re- 
ply to an inquiry concerning his scalded legs. " Cursed 
be Sally ; for it is written. Cursed is he that removeth 
his neighbor's landmark," was quoted against his nurse 
who had disarranged his " farm " staked out with oyster- 
shells in the garden. When he was sent to school, his 
mother explained to him that he must now learn to study 
without his accustomed sUce of bread and butter. " Yes, 
Mamma, industry shall be my bread and attention my 
butter." 

His use of the pen was even more remarkable than his 
power of speech. In 1808 his mother writes : — 

" My dear Tom continues to show marks of uncommon 
genius. He gets on wonderfully in all branches of his 
education, and the extent of his reading, and of the 
knowledge he has derived from it, are truly astonishing 
in a boy not yet eight years old. He is at the same time 
as playful as a kitten. . . . You will believe that to 
him we never appear to regard anything he does as any- 
thing more than a schoolboy's amusement. He took it 
into his head to write a compendium of universal history 
about a year ago, and he really contrived to give a toler- 



14 Macaulay's Essay on Milton 

ably connected view of the leading events from the Crea- 
tion to the present time, filling about a quire of paper. 
He told me one day that he had been writing a paper 
which Henry Daly was to translate into Malabar, to per- 
suade the people of Travancore to embrace the Christian 
religion. On reading it, I found it to contain a very clear 
idea of the leading facts and doctrines of that religion, 
with some strong arguments for its adoption. He was so 
fired with reading Scott's Lay and Marmion, the former 
of which he got entirely, and the latter almost entirely, by 
heart, merely from his delight in reading them, that he v' 
determined on writing himself a poem in six cantos, which 
he called The Battle of Cheviot y 

" It is worthy of note," writes his biographer. Sir George 
Trevelyan, "that the voluminous writings of his child- 
hood, dashed off at headlong speed in the odds and ends 
of leisure from school study and nursery routine, are not 
only perfectly correct in speUing and grammar, but dis- 
play the same lucidity of meaning and scrupulous accu- 
racy in punctuation and the other minor details of the 
literary art which characterize his mature works." 

" It was scarcely ever," writes one who knew him from 
the very first, " that the consciousness was expressed by 
either of his parents of the superiority of their son over 
other children. Indeed, with his father I never remem- 
ber any such expression." 

" Judging others by himself," says Trevelyan, " he 
credited the world at large with an amount of informa- 
tion which certainly few have the ability to acquire or the 



Introduction 



15 



capacity to retain. If his parents had not been so dili- 
gent in concealing from him the difference between his 
own intellectual stores and those of his neighbors, it is 
probable that less would have been heard of Lord Ma- 
caulay's schoolboy achievements." 

At the two preparatory schools which he attended the 
regular work made slight tax upon his powers and left him 
time to indulge that taste for reading which became a 
confirmed habit. 

"The secret of his immense acquirements," says Tre- 
velyan, " lay in two invaluable gifts of nature : an unerr- 
ing memory, and the capacity for taking in at a glance 
the contents of a printed page. During the first part of 
his life he remembered whatever caught his fancy without 
going through the process of consciously getting it by 
heart." ... "At one period of his life he was known 
to say that, if by some miracle of vandalism all cop- 
ies of Paradise Lost and The Pilgriui's Progress were 
destroyed off the face of the earth, he would undertake to 
reproduce them both from recollection whenever a re- 
vival of learning came." ... " Macaulay's extraordi- 
nary faculty of assimilating printed matter at first sight 
remained the same through life. To the end he read 
books faster than other people skimmed them, and 
skimmed them as fast as any one else could turn the 
leaves. ' He seemed to read through the skin,' said one 
who had often watched the operation. And this speed 
was not in his case obtained at the expense of accuracy." 

In 1818 Macaulay went into residence at Trinity Col- 



i6 Macaulay's Essay on Milton 

lege, Cambridge. Here he developed his social gifts be- 
sides doing the required tasks and continuing the habit 
of omnivorous reading. Among other friendships made 
was that with Charles Austin, who is credited with having 
converted Macaulay from his father's Tory opinions to 
become a supporter of Whig principles. The fascina- 
tion of their conversation appears in the following anec- 
dote : — 

" While on a visit to Lord Lansdowne at Bowood, 
Austin and Macaulay happened to get upon college topics 
one morning at breakfast. When the meal was finished, 
they drew their chairs to either end of the chimney-piece, 
and talked at each other across the hearth-rug as if they 
were in the first-floor room in the Old Court of Trinity. 
The whole company, — ladies, artists, politicians, and 
diners-out, — formed a silent circle around the two Can- 
tabs, and, with a short break for lunch, never stirred till 
the bell warned them that it was time to dress for 
dinner." 

In the Debating Society his fluent tongue and vast 
fund of information made him a formidable antagonist 
and prepared him for his speeches in Parliament. 

His career at Cambridge was as notable for its omis- 
sions as for its inclusions. Mathematics he detested and 
never mastered. Science and philosophy he seems not to 
have studied at the University, and the defect was not 
supplied later. The failure to educate himself in these 
departments was to some extent at least the cause of cer- 
tain deficiencies in his later work. He was conscious of 



Introduction 17 

this, as is shown in a letter written near the end of his 
hfe : — 

" If a man brings away from Cambridge self-knowl- 
edge, accuracy of mind, and habits of strong intellectual 
exertion, he has gained more than if he had made a dis- 
play of showy Etonian scholarship and got three or four 
Brown's Medals. ... I hope I do not overrate my own 
place in the estimation of society. Such as it is, I would 
not give a halfpenny to add to the consideration which I 
enjoy all the consideration that I should derive from hav- 
ing been senior wrangler. But I often regret, and even 
acutely, my want of a senior wrangler's knowledge of 
physics and mathematics ; and I regret still more some 
habits of mind which a senior wrangler is certain to 
possess." 

Though failing to receive the highest honors at the 
University, he won many medals and prizes for excellence 
in English verse, Latin declamation, etc. His Essay on 
The Cotiduct and Character of WiiHam the Thirds 
won for hiai a prize often pounds, and, what is more im- 
portant, directed his thought to a subject which occupied 
his interest throughout his life, and upon which he wrote 
his masterpiece — Jhe History of England, He won a 
Craven University scholarship, and in 1824 he attained 
the object for which he had so long striven — a Fellow- 
ship in his college. 

After leaving the University he studied law and was 
admitted to the bar in 1826. His interest, however, he 
never really gave to his profession, being, like Burke and 

mac's ess. on MILTON — 2 



1 8 Macaulay's Essay on Milton 

Scott, fascinated by the charms of literature. But he 
must have been faithful in his legal studies, for his work 
in India on the codification of the laws showed a thorough 
mastery of the principles of English law. 

Before passing on to consider his life work, we should 
glance at the happiness of the home life of which he was 
the center. During the vacations which he spent at home, 
games, froUcs, laughter, fun of all sorts, were the occupa- 
tions of the large family of boys and girls. In reading 
aloud, capping verses, puns, and doggerel verse, Tom 
was always in the lead. There seems to have been no 
limit to his resources of good spirits and good nature. 
He was the idol of the home, and was soon to be its main- 
stay ; for the father's failure in business, due to his ab- 
sorption in antislavery agitation, threw upon the eldest 
son the task of repairing the fortunes of the family and of 
supplying to brothers and sisters what their father could 
not now afford. Thus was the young Macaulay faced 
with a stern necessity at the very moment when his work 
of preparation was at an end. 

Macaulay's contributions to the Quarterly Magazme 
were of importance chiefly because they introduced him 
to Jeffrey, editor of the Edinburgh Review, who was look- 
ing for some clever young man to give life to that rather 
ponderous magazine. In the August number appeared 
Macaulay's Essay on Milton, and thenceforth articles 
from his pen were frequent. The great success of that 
article made him famous, and opened to him the hospit- 
able doors of social London. 



Introduction 19 

A speech of his, delivered at a meeting of the Anti- 
slavery Society, had won the ear of the public, and his 
essays in the Edinburgh Review sustained his fame as a 
thinker and writer. In 1830 Lord Lansdowne intimated 
to Macaulay that he had been much struck by the articles 
on Mill, and that he wished to be the means of intro- 
ducing their author to pubhc life. He was accordingly 
elected to Parliament, without opposition or expense, as 
a member for Calne. 

"And so," says Trevelyan, "on the eve of the most 
momentous conflict that ever was fought out by speech 
and vote within the walls of a senate house, the young 
recruit went gayly to his post in the ranks of that party 
whose coming fortunes he was prepared loyally to follow, 
and the history of whose past he was destined eloquently, 
and perhaps imperishably, to record." 

Macaulay's part in the debates upon the great Reform 
Bill was of capital importance. His extraordinary abili- 
ties as a debater gave him a position of influence in the 
councils of his party, and his engaging powers of conver- 
sation made him a lion in London society. Nothing suc- 
ceeds Hke success. The progress of Macaulay's successes 
was unbroken. Li May, 1832, he was appointed one of 
the Commissioners of the Board of Control, which repre- 
sented the crown in its relation to the East Indian direc- 
tors. In 1833 he was chosen one of the members of the 
Supreme Council of India. The attraction of this post 
for Macaulay was due to its salary. He wrote to his 
sister : — 



20 Macaulay's Essay on Milton 

" The advantages are very great. It is a post of the 
highest dignity and consideration. The salary is ten 
thousand pounds a year. I am assured by persons who 
know Calcutta intimately, and who have themselves mixed 
in the highest circles and held the highest offices at that 
presidency, that I may Hve in splendor there for five 
thousand a year, and may save the rest of the salary with 
the accruing interest. I may therefore hope to return 
to England at only thirty-nine, in the full vigor of life, 
with a fortune of thirty thousand pounds. A larger for- 
tune I never desired." 

His wish for an independent income was in behalf also 
of his brothers and sisters, one of whom, Hannah, accom- 
panied him to India, and presided over his establishment 
in Calcutta. Her marriage before the end of the year to 
Sir Charles Trevelyan, a rising Indian official, resulted in 
his winning a brother instead of losing a sister. " With 
the coming of children, his overflowing affection found a 
new outlet, and during the remainder of his life his sister's 
family filled his heart as completely and adequately as a 
family of his own would have done." 

Besides the removal of the censorship of the press, the 
two principal services that he rendered to India, were the 
" settling of her educational system on a firm and rational 
basis and the framing of a Penal Code for the Empire." 
In consequence of his advocacy, the present system of 
education in the English language was adopted, with such 
beneficial results as are difficult to estimate. The rich 
treasury of English Hterature is thus at the disposal 



Introduction 21 

of every pupil trained in the government schools of 
India. 

His work on the Penal Code has been described as the 
most readable and the most literary of all legal digests. 
" It was not finally enacted till i860, having in the mean- 
time been carefully revised by another." Of it Mr. 
Fitzjames Stephen testifies : — 

" The draft and the revision are both eminently credi- 
table to their authors ; and the result of their successive 
efforts has been to reproduce in a concise and even beau- 
tiful form the spirit of the law of England." This work 
on the Penal Code, exerting its influence on the now 
three hundred millions of India, is a sufficient result of 
his brief study of the law. 

Little writing for the Edinburgh Review did he do while 
in India, but the amount of his reading would seem 
incredible. 

" I have cast up my reading account, and brought it to 
the end of the year 1835. • • • During the last thir- 
teen months I have read ^schylus twice ; Sophocles 
twice ; Euripides once ; Pindar twice ; Calhmachus ; 
ApoUonius Rhodius ; Quintus Calaber ; Theocritus twice ; 
Herodotus ; Thucydides ; almost all Xenophon's works ; 
almost all Plato ; Aristotle's Politics, and a good deal of 
his Organon, besides dipping elsewhere in him ; the 
whole of Plutarch's Lives ; about half of Lucian ; two or 
three books of Athenaeus ; Plautus twice , Terence twice ; 
Lucretius twice ; Catullus ; Tibullus ; Propertius ; Lucan ; 
Statins ; Silius ItaUcus ; Livy ; Velleius Paterculus ; Sal- 



22 Macaulay*s Essay on Milton 

lust ; Caesar, and, lastly, Cicero. I have, indeed, a little 
of Cicero left ; but I shall finish him in a few days. I 
am now deep in Aristophanes and Lucian." 

The list is enough to make most professed classical 
scholars hide their diminished heads. 

Though living " more handsomely," he said, " than any 
other member of the Council," he found that he could lay 
by money faster than he had expected, and accordingly 
in 1838, in company with his sister and her family, he 
sailed for England. During the return voyage he mas- 
tered the German language. 

His desire, upon returning to England, was to retire to 
private life and devote himself to the writing of that His- 
tory of England which had been simmering in his mind. 
But a sense of duty quite as much as ambition led him to 
accept a position in the Cabinet, and thus his work 
on the History was deferred. His contributions to the 
Edinburgh Review were, however, numerous and valuable. 
And his Lays of Ancient Rome were occupying his 
thought and pen, though not published till 1842. 

Toward his History his heart turned as the great task of 
his remaining years, and he set himself to it with tireless 
zeal. In 1841, after the downfall of the Melbourne min- 
istry, he wrote : — 

" I have at last begun my historical labors ; I can 
hardly say with how much interest and delight. ... I 
shall not be satisfied unless I produce something which 
shall for a few days supersede the last fashionable novel 
on the tables of young ladies." 



Introduction 23 

His method of work was most painstaking. As soon 
as he had finished the rough draught, he began to fill it 
in at the rate of six foolscap pages a day, or two pages 
of print. The slowness of this rate was due to the thor- 
oughness of his investigations and his high standards of 
excellence. " He never allowed a sentence to pass till it 
was as good as he could make it. He thought little of 
recasting a chapter in order to obtain a more lucid 
arrangement, and nothing whatever of reconstructing a 
paragraph for the sake of one happy stroke or apt illus- 
tration." The results justified the labor. 

"I remember," says Trevelyan, "the pleasure with 
which he showed us a communication from one of the 
readers in Mr. Spottiswoode's office, who respectfully 
informed him that there was one expression, and one 
only, throughout the two volumes, of which he did not 
catch the meaning at a glance." 

The first two volumes, published in 1848, met with 
enthusiastic approval. In his diary he writes : — 

" I have reason to be pleased. Of the Lay of the Last 
Minstrel, two thousand two hundred and fifty copies were 
sold in the first year ; of Marmio7i, two thousand copies 
in the first month; of my book three thousand copies 
in ten days. Black says that there has been no such sale 
since the days of Wavefley.'''' 

In April, 1849, Messrs. Harper of New York wrote to 
Macaulay : — 

" We have already sold forty thousand copies, and we 
presume that over sixty thousand copies have been dis- 



24 Macaulay*s Essay on Milton 

posed of. . . . No work, of any kind, has ever so com- 
pletely taken our whole country by storm." 

The third and fourth volumes of the History appeared 
in 1855, and sold even more largely and rapidly than the 
first had done. " On the continent of Europe, Vk^ithin 
six months after the third and fourth volumes appeared, 
Baron Tauchnitz had sold ten thousand copies ; ' which 
proves,' writes Macaulay, 'that the number of persons 
who read English in France and Germany is very great.' 
Six rival translators were engaged at one and the same 
time in the work of turning the History into German." 

Since then it has been translated into the Pohsh, the 
Danish, the Swedish, the French, the Italian, the Dutch, 
the Spanish, the Hungarian, the Russian, the Bohemian, 
and the Persian languages, and has sold to the extent of 
at least a million copies. A check for ^{^2 0,000 is still 
preserved by the Longmans Publishing Company as a 
reminder of the largest single payment ever made in a 
transaction of this kind. 

In 1852, as if in recompense for his defeat there fif- 
teen years earlier, he was returned to the House of Com- 
mons by the city of Edinburgh. He found the sitting 
in Parliament a " bore," and he was soon prevented from 
attendance by heart disease. Compelled to withdraw 
from all arduous duties, he retired to a villa in Kensing- 
ton, and there amid his flowers he spent the remainder of 
his days in his lifelong occupations of reading, writing, 
and talking. 

In 1857 came the offer of a peerage, a well-deserved 



1 



Introduction 25 

honor, which he gladly accepted under the title of Baron 
Macaulay of Rothley. "■ He died as he had always 
wished to die — without pain; without any formal fare- 
well ; preceding to the grave all whom he loved ; and 
leaving behind him a great and honorable name, and the 
memory of a life every action of which was as clear and 
transparent as one of his own sentences." 

"On the 9th of January, i860, with impressive pomp, 
and amid the grief of an entire nation, he was borne to 
Westminster Abbey and buried in the Poets' Corner at 
the feet of the statue of Addison, and near the tombs of 
Johnson and Goldsmith, Garrick, Handel, and Gay." 



II. European Politics of the Time 

The great popular movement toward political liberty 
and constitutional government, which reached a chmax in 
the revolt of the American Colonies and in the French 
Revolution, was experienced also in varying degrees in 
all European countries. The latter half of the eighteenth 
century with the earher half of the nineteenth make a 
century of political unrest. Aspirations toward " liberty, 
fraternity, and equahty," first expressed by theorizers, be- 
came the common property of the people, and afterward 
became the rallying cries of revolutionists. The work 
of the French revolutionists was carried to such bloody 
extremes that a reaction necessarily followed, and the 
country fell into the hands of Napoleon, who exercised 



26 Macaulay*s Essay on Milton 

power only less autocratic than that of the Bourbons, 
the former monarchs of France. But at the close of the 
Napoleonic wars in 1815, the Congress of Vienna, instead 
of confirming the governmental rearrangements of Napo- 
leon, insisted on a return to the former condition of the 
boundary lines, and a restoration of the royal families to 
the thrones from which they had been ousted by Napo- 
leon. The ferment of Hberty cannot, however, be per- 
manently repressed by kings or congresses. And the 
movement toward constitutional government, toward lib- 
erty, toward reform, toward unity, began again to show 
itself. But partly because of the exhaustion from the 
long years of war, and partly because of a combination 
of the principal sovereigns of Europe in a league known 
as the Holy Alliance to maintain their power and to 
resist reform, these aspirations were, for fifteen years, 
baffled. 

But in 1830, fifteen years after the Congress of Vienna, 
the overthrow of Charles X was the cause of disturbances 
and changes in the other countries of the continent. 
These almost simultaneous uprisings in different nations 
show how the thoughts and movements of a central and 
important country like France are powerful to shape the 
course of events in neighboring governments. In some 
respects western Europe must be considered as one, 
sharing in a common movement of thought and political 
development — a development taking one form here and 
another form there, but as a whole having the same direc- 
tion or tendency. 



Introduction 27 

In Germany the sense of unity and the desire for con- 
stitutional government that resulted from the successful 
resistance to Napoleon were checked by the work of the 
Holy Alliance. 

In France, where the movement against tyranny origi- 
nated, the desire for liberty was kept alive during the 
reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, the successors of 
the Bourbons. 

In Spain an experiment with a constitutional monarchy 
was unsuccessful and was followed by a return to the for- 
mer tyrannical system. This was the time when the Span- 
ish colonies in America asserted their independence. 
Similar efforts were successfully made in Portugal and 
Greece, but unsuccessfully in Italy. 

This general movement on the continent was experi- 
enced also in England. Suggestions for reform in repre- 
sentation and in taxation had been made by Pitt and by 
the Whigs before the close of the eighteenth century, but 
the Napoleonic wars absorbed the energies of England 
for a generation. And it was not till the end of the wars 
that the subject of reform could be discussed again. 

The government of George IV resisted movements 
toward reform and supported the cause of absolutism 
abroad. The fear was general that if they yielded to 
the demand for reform, they would find reform followed 
by revolution. And the terrors of the French Revolution 
made the English government unwilling to run the risk 
of an English revolution. 

In 1822, however. Canning, a disciple of the great Pitt, 



28 Macaulay's Essay on Milton 

became foreign secretary and transferred England, says 
Guizot, " from the camp of resistance and of European 
order into the camp of liberty." At length, after the 
fears of revolution had subsided, and after the fires of 
war had burned out, the forces of reform drew to a head, 
gained control, and swept the country. The truly popu- 
lar government of England dates from the Reform Bill of 
1832. 

This rapid survey of Europe in the second and third 
decades of the century reveals a general movement 
toward reform, popular government, and national unity. 
All hearts were throbbing with the national pulse, and life 
was made intense by sharing in the general enthusiasm. 



III. Macaulay as a Statesman 

In a study of Macaulay's Essay on Milton it is neces- 
sary to make prominent the literary side of the life of its 
author. But in order fully to comprehend the Hterary 
aspects of his work, a clear understanding of his political 
achievements must be gained. It might be maintained 
that Macaulay's chief interest was in politics, and that 
his writings were tributary to that interest. It is at least 
certain, that no fair appreciation of the man and of his 
work can be obtained by ignoring the important part 
played by Macaulay in the Reform Movement. That the 
agitation took shape in England as a reform movement 
and not as a revolution, was due, of course, principally 



Introduction 29 

to the conservative tendencies of the Enghsh people, and 
largely to the traditions of government by party, which 
had grown up since the Revolution of 1688, a tradition 
which put the power of government not in the hands of 
an irresponsible ruler, but in those of the dominant party. 
The dominance of a party is not popular government, 
but it is perhaps as close an approach toward control by 
the people as they were then ready for. The form of 
government of the English made a further step toward a 
complete democracy in 1832, by the passage of the Re- 
form Bill by the Whig party, in which Macaulay had a 
part. 

Macaulay's conversion to Whig principles at Cam- 
bridge, through the influence of his friend Charles Austin, 
has already been alluded to. It brought keen regret to 
his Tory father, as did some other of his youthful charac- 
teristics, but was adhered to steadily throughout his life. 
It is a striking fact, indeed, that Macaulay's point of view 
and his chief interests were fixed before he left the Uni- 
versity. His intellectual vision was so clear that his 
opinions were held with conviction. His memory was so 
tenacious that he seems to have been unable to forget his 
own youthful positions and his reasons for them. With 
his adoption of Whig principles we must connect his in- 
terest in the subject of his prize essay, — King William III. 
A careful scrutiny of the subjects of his Essays, his His- 
tory, his Speeches, and even his Lays will reveal the con- 
stant underlying interest in Whig principles, in Enghsh 
history as illustrative of earlier stage.5 of the Reform 



30 Macaulay's Essay on Milton 

Movement, and in Roman history as furnishing examples 
of devotion to the commonwealth. Few young men 
are given so early an opportunity as Macaulay had to 
support their opinions by public speech and by direct 
vote on legislative enactments. 

" When Macaulay entered public life, the Whigs were 
looking confidently to an early return to power, and the 
cry for Parliamentary reform had suddenly revived with a 
strength it had never before known." 

Macaulay's first speech was delivered in April, 1830, on 
the Removal of Jewish Disabilities. 

The dissolution of Parliament in July, upon the death 
of George IV, was followed by the meeting of the new 
Parhament in October. The Wellington ministry was 
succeeded by a Whig Cabinet pledged to the " amehora- 
tion of abuses, the promotion of economy, and the en- 
deavor to preserve peace consistently with the honor of 
the country." The first bill brought in was the famous 
Reform Bill, which " contained a fist of one hundred and 
ten boroughs condemned to partial or entire disfran- 
chisement." The Bill was introduced on the ist of 
March, 1831, and on the evening of the 2d, Macaulay 
made the first of his Reform speeches." Sir George 
Trevelyan writes : — 

" When he sat down, the Speaker sent for him, and 
told him that, in all his prolonged experience, he had 
never seen the House in such a state of excitement. . . . 
Sir Thomas Denman, who rose later on in the discussion, 
said, with universal acceptance, that the orator's words 



Introduction 31 

remained tingling in the ears of all who heard them, and 
would last in their memories as long as they had mem- 
ories to employ. ... ' Portions of the speech,' said 
Sir Robert Peel, ' were as beautiful as anything I have 
ever heard or read. It reminded me of the old times.' 
The names of Fox, Burke, and Canning were during that 
evening in everybody's mouth." 

The impression made by the first speech was con- 
firmed by the two succeeding ones delivered on the 
same Bill. " Macaulay surpassed his former appearance 
in closeness, fire, and vigor, and very much improved 
the effect by a more steady and graceful delivery. It 
was prodigiously cheered, as it deserved, and, I think, 
puts him clearly at the head of the great speakers, if not 
the debaters of the House." 

" As for me," writes Macaulay, " I am for the present 
a sort of lion. My speech has set me in the front rank, 
if I can keep there ; and it has not been my luck hitherto 
to lose ground when I have once got it." 

The radical changes introduced by the Reform Bill 
made new elections speedily necessary. Macaulay, with- 
out giving any preelection pledges, was elected for Leeds, 
and took his place in the first reformed Parliament of 
1833. Among the reforms promised by the Whig party 
was that of economy. In fulfilling this promise Macaulay 
had the honorable opportunity of abolishing the office 
of Commissioner of Bankruptcy which he himself held. 
Obliged by this measure of national economy to practice 
a personal economy, Macaulay, though never in debt. 



32 Macaulay's Essay on Milton 

was compelled to sell his college medals. This was the 
situation that made it desirable for personal reasons 
to accept the offer of a position on the Supreme Council 
of India. 

After his return to England his election to Parliament, 
in 1839, was followed by his acceptance of an offer of the 
Secretaryship for War with a seat in the Cabinet. This 
period did not present so important a crisis in national 
affairs as that of his first service in Parliament. There 
was no great cause to call forth his eloquence, and his 
admirers now regret that he did not sooner retire from 
public life and devote himself to the writing of his His- 
tory. It is, therefore, by his distinguished part in the 
passage of the Reform Bill, and by his lasting services to 
law and education in India, that his fame as a statesman 
will be preserved. But the reader of his Essays and of 
his History will not fail to connect the main subject of 
his writings with the main subject of his great speeches, 
— the interests of Whig doctrines and reform. 



IV. Macaulay's Mind and Character 

Before passing to a brief study of Macaulay's writings, 
it may be well to make an analysis of his mind and 
character. " The style is the man," and especially so 
in the case of a personahty so simple and positive as was 
Macaulay's. 

The fundamental characteristic of Macaulay seems to 



Introduction 



33 



have been a peculiar vividness and intensity shown in all 
his thoughts and feelings. What he saw, he saw distinctly ; 
what he felt, he felt passionately ; what he thought, he 
thought clearly and confidently. This intensity was ap- 
parently his to the end of his life. His opinions were 
always held with conviction and maintained with fervor. 
His friends were loved with warm affection, and his 
enemies, few in number, and principally of former times, 
were hated with a perfect hatred. 

As a consequence of this vividness of first impressions, 
there was an intensity in the act of memory. Instances 
have been given of his almost infallible power of memory. 
During the earlier half of his life it was not necessary for 
him to commit to memory what he wished to retain ; he re- 
membered everything that he read with care. It is difficult 
to exaggerate the power of one who had at his pen point 
everything that he had read. It made him almost inde- 
pendent of books when writing, and a devourer of books 
at all other times. A new style of writing history was of 
course possible to one who carried all the details of per- 
sonal biography, political parties, and national customs in 
the reservoir of his memory. 

Such a power has also its weakness ; it has the faults of 
its qualities. A man to whom the past is almost as dis- 
tinct as the present, will hardly be a radical. The memory 
is an element of conservatism and anchors one to one's 
past. Is it an error to connect with this truth the fact that 
Macaulay never changed his opinions, was not what is 
called a growing man? To the same cause may be traced 

mac's ess. on MILTON — 3 



34 Macaulay's Essay on Milton 

that other and more serious fault in Macaulay ; namely, 
the almost entire absence of reflection. He was con- 
stantly reading, or writing, or talking, or reciting, appar- 
ently never thinking. 

In that deliberate thought which goes by the name of 
reflection he seems not to have indulged. Conspicuous 
in his University course was the absence of science 
and philosophy, and his aversion to mathematics was 
almost ludicrous. The faults of his education seemed to 
strengthen his powers instead of supplementing his de- 
fects, with the result that he became a great devourer of 
other men's thoughts, and not a profound thinker. Be- 
neath his Essays and his History there is not a philoso- 
phy of life or of history. His thoughts and facts lie 
pretty near the surface, which is perhaps a reason for 
their popularity. 

Besides this excessive development of memory, there 
was a moral simplicity, directness and integrity, equally 
fundamental. There was a rectitude in all his conduct 
that reminds us of his father, the stern old enemy of the 
slave trade. There has never been breathed a suspicion 
of dishonesty in any act of Macaulay's private or public 
hfe. 

Conscious in himself of such perfect integrity, he quickly 
formed severe judgments of any others who did not ap- 
pear to him to show the same integrity. His prejudices, 
thus conceived were intense and lasting, and were as 
strong against the characters of history as against his 
contemporaries. 



Introduction 35 

These two fundamental characteristics — his intensity 
and his integrity — made him a unique man and make 
him a worthy object of study. 



V. Macaulay as an Author 

An infinite capacity for work was one of the elements 
of Macaulay's genius. While he was doing a man's work 
in Parliament, returning to sleep only in the small hours 
of the morning, he was accustomed to rise and write be- 
fore breakfast, working under the pressure of the forth- 
coming number of the Edinburgh Review. Much of his 
essay writing was done in this way, like the novel writing 
of Scott, before breakfast. Much of his writing resembled 
that of Scott also in being impromptu, hasty, extempora- 
neous writing. A still deeper resemblance has been 
found between these two authors. One has been called 
the inventor of the historical romance, the other of ro- 
mantic history. It was Macaulay's avowed purpose to 
make his history as interesting as a romance, in order 
that it might displace the latest novel. 

The Essays. — Macaulay's Essays have the same sort 
of merit as his History, for which they may be considered 
to be preUminary studies. They have been even more 
popular than the history, probably because the popular 
mind likes to take its history in small doses, and finds 
itself indisposed to read a history in five volumes. The 
Essays were written without thought that they would live 



26 Macaulay's Essay on Milton 

beyond the month of publication, and they were at first 
collected and printed against Macaulay's will. 

They may be divided into four groups, — the historical, 
the critical, the controversial, and the biographical. They 
are, it has been said, a greater body of essays in an essay- 
writing age than any except the work of Sainte-Beuve. 

They show Macaulay's interest in the principles of the 
Whig party, the dominant interest of his life. Some have 
a direct bearing on contemporary events, and some only 
an indirect bearing through the similarity existing between 
the Puritan and the Whig movements. The best of the 
essays are perhaps those on Sir William Temple, Chve, 
Hastings, and Dr. Samuel Johnson. 

The essays have unity, freshness, clearness, forceful- 
ness, and such a wealth of illustration as would be possible 
only to one equipped with Macaulay's memory. 

The Lays. — Concerning the Lays of Ancient Rome 
but Httle need be said. It must be admitted that Macau- 
lay was not a poet of the highest order. But his verses 
deserve praise. Macaulay was fortunate in finding sub- 
jects that gave opportunity for spirited narration, and pic- 
turesque treatment. His rhythm and meter are regular 
and perfect, as is also the structure of his stanzas. The 
stories uniformly inculcate clearly but not obtrusively the 
wholesome moral lessons of patriotism and democracy. 
They are objective rather than subjective in treatment, and 
are in consequence thoroughly enjoyed by young and old 
alike. 

The Speeches are not often referred to, nor often read, 



Introduction 



37 



but they are among his best work. They are direct, 
forceful, clear, earnest, and effective. They were recog- 
nized by his opponents as presentations of his case so 
strong that they could not be ignored, as the speeches 
of some others could be ; his speeches had to be met 
and answered. The best of them is perhaps that on the 
Reform Bill. 

The History. — Macaulay's History of England is his 
magnum opus. For many years he looked forward to 
writing it, and for it he retired from public life. 

Macaulay's purpose was to make history popular, and 
thus to seek an entrance into the common mind for what 
had been limited to the minds of scholars. 

It was a new kind of history that he attempted — pic- 
turesque rather than philosophical. He treated a period 
of history with the fullness of a novel, describing the situa- 
tions and the characters with minute faithfulness. 

The result is a mere fragment, covering in five volumes 
a period of seventeen years. Twenty-five or thirty vol- 
umes would have been needed to treat the period of a 
hundred years, in accordance with his original plan. 

The merits of the History are many and striking. It 
is always readable, picturesque, and interesting, more so 
than many a novel. It manifests wonderful sympathy 
with the past, and power to recreate it imaginatively, and 
is never intentionally unfair or prejudiced. 

On the other hand the criticism may be fairly made that 
the narrative is sometimes really though unintentionally 
unfair. The feelings of Macaulay were so intense that he 



38 Macaulay's Essay on Milton 

could hardly do justice to a person against whom he had 
conceived a prejudice. It has also been said that the His- 
tory is an extended political pamphlet, written because of 
Macaulay's interest in the contemporary political situation. 
An impartial history would hardly be the product of such 
a purpose. A final criticism is that the work concen- 
trates disproportionate emphasis on one period of history, 
and that not very important. As a consequence, the 
reigns of James II and William III are better known by 
the reading pubHc than the reigns of any other English 
monarchs. 

Of Macaulay's literary work as a whole it may be re- 
peated, as has often been said, that, while one may 
find serious fault with the inaccuracy of Macaulay as a 
historian, he may be credited with having created an 
appetite for the reading of history more than any other 
historian has done. That is high and sufficient praise. 



VI. Macaulay's Style 

In considering Macaulay's style we must think of it as 
an expression of himself and as intended for a particular 
audience. His style manifested his own simpHcity, lu- 
cidity, and forcefulness. It was one which, as we have 
seen, he possessed in germ in his earliest writings, a style 
upon which he bestowed infinite care, and which came 
to have a perfect adaptation to his type of mind and 
thought. It was adapted also to the popular audience 



Introduction 



39 



which he had in mind. He was not writing primarily 
for scholars, but for that reading public which must be 
caught by fascination of subject and charm of manner. 
Macaulay's desire to be popular was no vulgar or selfish 
desire, and his success was not earned by any cheap 
trick of sensationalism. 

His vocabulary, to begin with, was simple and untech- 
nical. " He coined no words and used no archaisms." 
He found it possible to express all he had to say in the 
current vocabulary of literature. This was, of course, a 
condition of prime importance for the popular audience 
which he addressed. 

Much has been said about Macaulay's sentences, and 
he has by some been credited with the invention of the 
journalistic style of composition. But the systematic use 
of short sentences was not original with Macaulay as the 
following quotation will indicate : — 

" But in the matter of style Macaulay was Httle else 
than an energetic follower of Gibbon ; and the following 
of Gibbon became, through the fine practice of Macaulay, 
a harmful habit in English prose. Macaulay unfortu- 
nately had not the copyright. . . . The style of Mr. 
Micawber himself was a corrupt following of Gibbon, and 
the style of the daily paper and the style of the grocer's 
circular to-day are also a corrupt following of Gibbon. 
Gibbon was a master, but it was through a second-hand 
admiration that Gibbon was placed where he eclipsed the 
past, so that the early eighteenth century and the seven- 
teenth century were neglected for his sake. It was to the 



40 Macaulay's Essay on Milton 

broad face of astonishment that Gibbon addressed his 
phrase. The shortened sentence (for it was he and not 
Macaulay who introduced the frequent full stop, the 
pause for historical surprise) was Gibbon's."^ 

Newcomer quotes the following as an example of Ma- 
caulay's short sentence, the unqualified statement of one 
thing at a time, "The shore was rocky, the night was 
black, the wind was furious, the waves of the Bay of Bis- 
cay ran high." The same quotation illustrates Macau- 
lay's frequent omissions of connectives, the visible signs 
of the connections of thought. 

As illustrations of Macaulay's frequent use of the 
antithetical or balanced sentence, Newcomer quotes : 
" The Puritan had affected formality ; the comic poet 
laughed at decorum. The Puritan had frowned at inno- 
cent diversions ; the comic poet took under his patron- 
age the most flagitious excesses. The Puritan had 
canted; the comic poet blasphemed." The pupil, with 
the foregoing hint, will find constant examples of Macau- 
lay's mannerisms of style. 

In paragraph structure Macaulay is exact and syste- 
matic. Many paragraphs begin with topic sentences, and 
after the discussion close with a summary. 

The Essays considered as wholes have unity ; for 
though there may be digressions, they do not detract 
from the desired impression, and the author's return 
from his digression is clearly indicated. 

Macaulay has a tendency to exaggerate, a fault which 
1 Alice Meynell, in the Atlantic Monthly ^ January, 1903. 



Introduction 41 

is clearly an expression of his own aggressive personality. 
Lord Melbourne is quoted as having expressed a wish that 
he could " be as cocksure of anything as Tom Macaulay 
was of everything." He uses strong words, makes un- 
qualified statements, universal propositions. His use of 
superlatives was excessive, and he had a- trick, as New- 
comer indicates, of raising superlatives to the second or 
third degree, e.g., "What the Itahan is to the Eng- 
Hshman, what the Hindoo is to the ItaHan, what the 
Bengalee is to other Hindoos, that was Nuncomar to 
other Bengalees." 

Macaulay's concreteness and power of illustration may 
be mentioned together, for they are both the result of 
his power of imaginatively constructing a picture of the 
past, of which his memory supplied him with countless 
details of the incidents and circumstances. 

Such are some of the elements of the famous journal- 
istic style of Macaulay, a style against which one needs to 
be on one's guard, for it is easier to imitate its faults than 
its merits. 

Vn. The Essay on Milton 

The Edifiburgh Review, founded in 1802, had in 1825 
reached its highest point of power. Its editor, Jeffrey, 
was "growing feverish about new writers." In January, 
1825, he wrote to a friend in London: "Can you not 
lay your hands on some clever young man who would 
write for us? The original supporters of the work are 



42 Macaulay's Essay on Milton 

getting old, and either too busy or too stupid, and here 
the young men are mostly Tories." That same year 
Macaulay's essay on Milton appeared in the August 
number. 

Trevelyan says : " The effect on the author's repu- 
tation was instantaneous. Like Lord Byron, he awoke 
one morning and found himself famous. The beauties 
of the work were such as all men could recognize, and 
its very faults pleased. The redundance of youthful 
enthusiasm, which he himself unsparingly condemns in 
the preface to his collected essays, seemed graceful 
enough in the eyes of others. . . . Murray declared 
that it would be worth the copyright of Childe Harold 
to have Macaulay on the staff of the Qua7'terly. The 
family breakfast table at Bloomsbury was covered with 
cards of invitation to dinner from every quarter of 
London. ... A warm admirer of Robert Hall, Macau- 
lay heard with pride how the great preacher, then well- 
nigh worn out with that long disease, his life, was discovered 
lying on the floor, employed in learning, by aid of gram- 
mar and dictionary, enough Italian to enable him to verify 
the parallel between Milton and Dante. But the compli- 
ment that of all others came most nearly home — the 
only commendation of his literary talent which even in 
the innermost domestic circle he was ever known to re- 
peat — was the sentence with which Jeffrey acknowledged 
the receipt of his manuscript, * The more I think, the less 
I can conceive where you picked up that style.' " 

To Macaulay's later taste the essay seemed " gaudy 



Introduction 43 

and ungraceful." He says, " It contained scarcely a 
paragraph such as my matured judgment approved." Its 
merits, however, are such and so striking that all agree 
in calling it "an astonishing production for a man of 
twenty-five." 

Macaulay had an inner sympathy with his subject, 
for he was an enthusiastic Whig, and Whiggism was the 
manifestation of the spirit of the Puritans adapted to 
modern circumstances. 

In accordance with the uniform method of the Edin- 
burgh Review the Essay begins with a notice and criticism 
of a book recently published, but continues with an inde- 
pendent discussion of the subject in hand. This he treats 
under two main heads : Milton's writings, and his pub- 
lic life. In the second half occur those fine passages, 
most frequently quoted, concerning the Puritans and the 
Cavaliers, parts of which might well be committed to 
memory. 

The effect of this essay on public opinion has been 
great and good. It has redeemed the name of Milton 
from the obloquy under which it had rested since the 
publication of Johnson's malignant Life of Milton. What 
Carlyle has done for Cromwell, that Macaulay did for 
Milton : he dehvered him from the hands of the Tories, 
and enabled the public to see him apart from the preju- 
dices of controversy and civil war. So we are inclined 
to think. It is, however, worth considering whether the 
essay did not rather substitute a Whig prejudice for a 
Tory one. Was it almost as much of an overestimate as 



44 Macaulay's Essay on Milton 

Johnson's was an underestimate ? Let each student be 
fully persuaded in his own mind. 



VIII. Life and Times of Milton^ 

John Milton, second only to Shakespeare among the 
masters of English literature, was born in London on 
the 9th of December, 1608. The house in Bread Street 
was distinguished, not by number as houses are now, 
but by the sign of the Black Spread Eagle. 

Milton's father, also named John, was a scrivener or 
a copying lawyer, in which occupation he had prospered 
for fifteen years. He had been disinherited by his 
father for having abandoned the Catholic faith. 

In his home the boy had every advantage ; peace, 
piety, and comfort reigned there. Though the father 
regulated his household on Puritan principles, he was 
yet a man of liberal culture, being a skilled composer 
of music. From him the son derived his musical ear 
and his first tuition in music. From the first the 
father discerned the genius of the son, and found his 
chief pleasure in fostering it and watching its growth. 

Milton's first teacher was a Scotchman, Thomas 
Young ; later he was sent to St. Paul's School — a pub- 

1 This account of the life of Milton is largely an abridgment 
of David Masson's life of Milton, taken from the Encyclopcedia 
Britannica. 



Introduction 4r 

lie grammar school of high celebrity, and within a 
minute's walk of Bread Street. 

According to Aubrey, " He studied very hard and sat 
up very late, commonly till twelve or one o'clock, and 
his father ordered the maid to sit up for him ; and in 
these years he composed many verses which might well 
become a riper age." Milton himself says that when 
he went to the university he was already " instructed 
in various tongues," and had " no mean apprehension 
of the sweetness of philosophy." He was sixteen years 
old on entering Christ's College, Cambridge, and he 
spent there the full academic period of seven years 
necessary for the A.M. degree. 

Owing to a certain haughtiness of manner, and an 
obstinacy in pursuing his own course of study, he was 
at first not well liked. His college fellows nicknamed 
him " The Lady," in allusion partly to the delicacy of 
his personal appearance, and partly to his moral fastid- 
iousness. Soon, however, he won the respect, not only 
of the college, but also of the whole University. He 
speaks of " that more than ordinary favor and respect 
which he found alcove any of his equals at the hands of 
those courteous and learned men " who were the au- 
thorities of his college. 

On going to the University, Milton had been destined 
for the church, but long before the end he had aban- 
doned the purpose. Whoever would become a clergy- 
man at that time must, he said, " subscribe slave, and 
take an oath withal, which, unless he took with a con- 



46 Macaulay*s Essay on Milton 

science that could not retch, he must strait perjure 
himself." On Shakespeare and Ofi the Morning of 
Chrisfs Nativity are the two poems of this period to be 
remembered. 

The five years following his leaving college (1632- 
1637) were spent at Horton, in Buckinghamshire, about 
twenty miles from London, whither his father had re- 
tired in his old age. During these years he read the 
Greek and Latin writers ; doubtless also the Italian, 
French, and English. This was the period in which 
he composed L' Allegro and // Pense7'oso, the Arcades^ 
Comiis, and Lycidas. How small in bulk, but how ex- 
quisite in quality ! They are the product of Milton's 
young manhood, still unmodified by the sobering expe- 
riences of his public life. The purity of tone in all 
of them is as perfect as the literary taste. In Coinus 
the very theme is the inviolability of virtue ; and here, 
as in Lycidas, there are outbreaks of the spirit of the 
future stern social reformer. 

After the death of his mother, in 1637, Milton set 
out with one servant to make the continental tour. At 
Paris he was kindly received. He went to Genoa by 
way of Nice, and thence to Leghorn, Pisa, and Florence. 
There he remained two months, frequenting the society 
of artists and men of letters. At Naples he received 
news of the imminence of civil war, and decided to 
return. " I thought it dishonorable," he says, "that I 
should be traveling at my ease for amusement, when 
my fellow-countrymen at home were fighting for liberty." 



Introduction 47 

Returning leisurely through Italy and France, he reached 
England after an absence of a year and three months. 

One result of the Italian tour was its effect in stimu- 
lating his literary ambition. While in Italy he had 
shown about, according to the custom, or had recited 
in literary circles, some of his compositions in Latin 
and English. These had won him, in return, compli- 
mentary letters and copies of verses from the Italian 
scholars and wits. " I began," he says, " thus far to 
assent both to them and to divers of my friends here 
at home, and not less to an inward prompting which 
now grew daily upon me, that by labor and intent study 
(which I take to be my portion in this life), joined with 
the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave 
something so written to aftertimes as they should not 
willingly let it die." What the form of his work should 
be he had not decided, but all plans were interrupted 
by the civil war. On the first signs of that movement, 
he consented " to lay aside his singing robes " in order 
to " embark in a troubled sea of noises and hoarse dis- 
putes." For the space of twenty years we see him only 
as a polemical prose writer, giving and taking blows in 
the cause of the Revolution. 

At first Milton conducted a private school in which, 
after a peculiar system of his own, he taught his nephews 
and a few other gentlemen's sons. 

The first controversy into which Milton threw himself 
was that which raged concerning Prelacy, upon which he 
wrote five pamphlets. 



48 Macaulay's Essay on Milton 

Milton's marriage to Mary Powell, the daughter of a 
royalist, was apparently an ill-co"'nsidered and hasty affair, 
to be repented at leisure. Being no Minerva, but a 
simple country girl, "accustomed to dance with king's 
officers at home," the young wife found her life intoler- 
able, and could see nothing in her husband but a man of 
harsh and morose ways, whom she could not understand 
and who was always at his books. She asked leave to 
return home on a short visit, and then flatly refused to 
come back. Milton's conduct was most characteristic. 
He made his case a matter of public argument, and pub- 
lished in quick succession four tracts on the subject of 
divorce. His doctrine is that moral incompatibility is as 
good a ground for divorce as conjugal infidehty, a doc- 
trine which no civilized society has seen fit to adopt. He 
seems to treat the question as if it were wholly a man's 
question, and he expresses notions of the inferiority of 
women such as he held all his life. The king's waning 
fortunes made it convenient for his wife's family to bring 
about a reconciliation. 

In ,1644 appeared his tract On Education, and his 
noble Areopagitica, or Speech for the Liberty of Unli- 
censed Printing. 

In January, 1649, Charles I was beheaded and Eng- 
land became a commonwealth. At the crisis Milton 
came forward to justify what the bolder spirits had done 
and " to compose the minds of the people." Within two 
weeks after the execution of Charles he published a short 
pamphlet in defense of the regicides. Because of this 



Introduction 49 

timely help he was offered the position of Latin Secretary 
to the Council. He entered upon the duties of this office 
in 1649, ^^""^ received a salary of ;£2 90 a year. 

A series of forty-six letters in Latin, addressed to for- 
eign governments, were edited from his papers after his 
death. But more important work than this had to be 
done. The famous Eikon Bastlike, which represented 
Charles as a saint and martyr, was widely circulated. To 
counteract its influence Milton wrote the Eikonoklastes, 
or Image-breaker. 

Charles II, then a refugee in Holland, had got Salma- 
sius, a learned professor at the University of Leyden, to 
write a defense of the cause of his father. Milton was 
called upon to answer this Defensio Regia, which he did 
by writing his First Defense for the People of England. 
It was rumored that Salmasius died of mortification at his 
defeat by Milton. The life-long weakness of Milton's 
eyesight was aggravated by the preparation of this pam- 
phlet, and he soon became totally bhnd, though his eyes 
remained as beautiful to outward view as they had always 
been. The death of his wife in 1652 left him with three 
daughters, aged seven, five, and one, respectively. These 
girls, because of the loss of their mother, and because of 
his notions of the inferiority of women, were not properly 
educated and became a source of trouble and anxiety 
to him. 

In spite of his blindness, Milton continued in the active 
discharge of his duties as Latin Secretary during the whole 
protectorate of Cromwell till the latter's death in 1658. 

mac's ess. on MILTON — 4 



50 Macaulay's Essay on Milton 

His later pamphlets must have been dictated, as also the 
great poems of his closing period of life. 

His second wife, Catherine Woodcock, lived only a 
year, and her memory was celebrated by a sonnet. 

The twenty months that followed the death of Crom- 
well were occupied by Milton in attempts to maintain re- 
publicanism in England, and prevent the restoration of 
the Stuart family. If one man could have done it, that 
man was Milton. But his efforts were in vain. 

In 1660 Charles II was on the throne and Milton in 
custody. His more obnoxious writings were called in 
by proclamation, and pubHcly burned by the hands of the 
hangman. Milton's pamphlets, however, though less great 
than his poetry, will share his immortality. 

Milton survived the Restoration fourteen years (1660- 
1674), the third period of his hterary Hfe. The Puritans 
were out of office and had to cherish their principles in 
secret till such time as they should reappear in the guise 
of modern Whiggism and Dissent. Execration of Puri- 
tanism and a reaction in favor of whatever Puritanism 
had forbidden characterized the popular conduct and 
public procedure. 

The Hterature of this period reflected the national mood 
and temper, expressing the anti-Puritan spirit, and tend- 
ing toward the comic and jocose in all forms. The drama 
of the Restoration attained its height in Dryden, who be- 
came poet laureate in 1670. 

In 1662 Milton was married for the third time. We 
have it on her husband's authority that Elizabeth Min- 



Introduction 51 

shull "was very kind and careful of him," and by the 
same authority that his daughters were " unkind and 
undutiful." Milton complained that " they were careless 
of him being blind, and made nothing of deserting him ; " 
also that " they made way with some of his books, and 
would have sold the rest to the dunghill woman." 

The daughters had been trained by their father to what 
they thought the irksome work of writing to his dictation, 
and reading to him in several languages without under- 
standing their meaning. A large and striking painting 
by Muncaczy, of Milton dictating Paradise Lost to his 
daughters, may be seen in the Lenox Library in New 
York. 

During this closing period Milton found his solace in 
his own thoughts, in the conversation of a few friends who 
were proud to lead him out on his daily walks, and also in 
his books and in continued literary occupations. 

Among the works produced in his last period is the 
volume on the Christian Doctrines which furnished the 
occasion for Macaulay's Essay. 

Paradise Lost had been begun in 1658. The greater 
part of it was composed during the reign of Charles II, 
and the whole was completed and sold in 1667 for ;^5 
down with a promise of ^5 more after the sale of each 
thirteen hundred copies. Milton and his widow appear 
to have received ^£27, from the total sales. 

Ellwood, returning the manuscript of Paradise Lost to 
Milton, said, "Thou hast said much here of Paradise 
Lost; but what hast thou to say of Paradise Found? " 



52 Macaulay's Essay on Milton 

This was the suggestion for the writing of Paradise Re- 
gained, which appeared in 1671. In the same year also 
was published the Sajuson Agonistes, which has a pecul- 
iarly personal interest because of the similarity in the 
circumstances of Milton and Samson in the matter of 
their blindness and otherwise. 

In these later works of Milton we see the same imagi- 
nation as was manifested in the earher poems, but it is 
now the imagination of a mind that had been tried and 
disciplined by what it had passed through, heavily 
freighted, as it were, with twenty years of ideas, griefs, 
experiences, and recollections. It is as if Milton's genius 
had absorbed and incorporated into its fiber all that we 
know of the intermediate polemic and prose writer. 

In looking for a subject for his masterpiece, Milton 
had, like Wordsworth, ranged through history, resting for 
a time on the legends of King Arthur, the subject after- 
wards chosen by Tennyson. The subject actually chosen 
was not only great in itself, but especially adapted to the 
lofty genius of Milton. 

The form of the poem is epic ; the meter is blank 
verse ; the hero, at least of the first two books, is Satan ; 
the theme is the connection of this world with the larger 
universe of ante-human existence. Basing his poem on 
the incidents furnished by the Bible, the poet has passed 
the whole through his imagination in such a manner that 
now it is Milton's story of the origin of the universe, 
rather than the Biblical outline, that has taken possession 
of the British mind. 



Introduction ^^ 

Of a stature somewhat below the average, Milton had, 
in his youth, been singularly handsome, with a complex- 
ion of delicate white and red, dark gray eyes, Hght 
auburn hair parted in the middle, and altogether an 
appearance of slender and even feminine grace. 

A visitor once found him "in a small chamber hung 
with rusty green, sitting in an elbow chair, and dressed 
neatly in black ; pale, but not cadaverous ; his hands 
and fingers gouty, and with chalk stones." Aubrey 
says, " He was an early riser, to wit, at four o'clock in 
the morning, yea, after he lost his sight." In winter 
his hour of rising was five. He had a man read to 
him as soon as he got up, and also after breakfast, and 
he always began the day wdth a chapter or two of the 
Hebrew Bible. The early part of the day was spent 
by him in reading and writing ; he used to dictate sit- 
ting with his leg thrown over the arm of the chair. At 
one o'clock, after a short walk, he dined, eating well, 
but drinking little except water. After dinner he used 
to walk again in the garden, or out in the neighborhood, 
wdth some one guiding him. In the afternoon he usu- 
ally played an hour on the organ or bass viol, either 
singing himself or making his wdfe sing. An hour or 
more towards evening was again given to his books ; 
about six o'clock visitors w^ould drop in, whom he w^ould 
entertain till eight; then he had olives or something 
light by way of supper with them ; and, after a pipe of 
tobacco and a glass of water, he went to bed. " Ex- 
tremely pleasant in conversation, but satirical," says 



54 Macaulay*s Essay on Milton 

Aubrey, who adds that " he was visited by the learned 
much more than he did desire." 

The date of his death was November 8, 1674. The 
cause was " gout struck in." He was buried beside his 
father, in the Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate. The 
widow survived her husband forty-five years. No 
direct descendants of Milton are now living. 

Such was the life and death of the great man for 
whom, with Macaulay, we may express our veneration. 



ESSAY ON MILTON 



Joannis Miltoni, Angli^ de Doctrind Christiana libri duo postkumi. 
A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scrip- 
tures alone. By John Milton, translated from the Original by 
Charles R. Sumner, M.A., &c., &c. 1825. 

Towards the close of the year 1823, Mr. Lemon, 
deputy keeper of the state papers, in the course of his 
researches among the presses of his office, met with a 
large Latin manuscript. With it were found corrected 
copies of the foreign despatches written by Milton, 5 
while he filled the office of Secretary, and several 
papers relating to the Popish Trials and the Rye-house 
Plot. The whole was wrapped up in an envelope, super- 
scribed To Mr. Skinner, Me7'chafit. On examination, 
the large manuscript proved to be the long lost Essay 10 
on the Doctrines of Christianity, which, according to 
Wood and Toland, Milton finished after the Restoration, 
and deposited with Cyriac Skinner. Skinner, it is well 
known, held the same political opinions with his illustrious 
friend. It is therefore probable, as Mr. Lemon conjee- 15 
tures, that he may have fallen under the suspicions of the 
government during that persecution of the Whigs which 

55 



56 Essay on Milton 

followed the dissolution of the Oxford parliament, and 
that, in consequence of a general seizure of his papers, 
this work may have been brought to the office in which 
it has been found. But whatever the adventures of the 
5 manuscript may have been, no doubt can exist that it 
is a genuine relic of the great poet. 

Mr. Sumner, who was commanded by his Majesty 
to edit and translate the treatise, has acquitted him- 
self of his task in a manner honourable to his talents 

10 and to his character. His version is not indeed very 
easy or elegant ; but it is entitled to the praise of 
clearness and fideHty. His notes abound with inter- 
esting quotations, and have the rare merit of really 
elucidating the text. The preface is evidently the 

15 work of a sensible and candid man, firm in his own 

religious opinions, and tolerant towards those of others. 

The book itself will not add much to the fame of 

Milton. It is, like all his Latin works, well written, 

though not exactly in the style of the prize essays of 

20 Oxford and Cambridge. There is no elaborate imi- 
tation of classical antiquity, no scrupulous purity, none 
of the ceremonial cleanness which characterises the 
diction of our academical Pharisees. The author does 
not attempt to polish and brighten his composition into 

25 the Ciceronian gloss and brilliancy. He does not in 
short sacrifice sense and spirit to pedantic refinements. 
The nature of his subject compelled him to use many 
words 

" That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp." 



Essay on Milton 57 

But he writes with as much ease and freedom as if Latin 
were his mother tongue ; and, where he is least happy, 
his failure seems to arise from the carelessness of a native, 
not from the ignorance of a foreigner. We may apply to 
him what Denham with great felicity says of Cowley. 5 
He wears the garb, but not the clothes of the ancients. 

Throughout the volume are discernible the traces of 
a powerful and independent mind, emancipated from 
the influence of authority, and devoted to the search of 
truth. Milton professes to form his system from the 10 
Bible alone ; and his digest of Scriptural texts is certainly 
among the best that have appeared. But he is not 
always so happy in his inferences as in his citations. 

Some of the heterodox doctrines which he avows seem 
to have excited considerable amazement, particularly his 15 
Arianism, and his theory on the subject of polygamy.^ 
Yet we can scarcely conceive that any person could have 
read the Paradise Lost without suspecting him of the 
former ; nor do we think that any reader, acquainted 
with the history of his life, ought to be much startled 20 
at the latter. The opinions which he has expressed 
respecting the nature of the Deity, the eternity of mat- 
ter, and the observation of the Sabbath, might, we think, 
have caused more just surprise. 

But we will not go into the discussion of these points. 25 
The book, were it far more orthodox or far more heretical 
than it is, would not much edify or corrupt the present 
generation. The men of our time are not to be con- 
iThat it is inexpedient, but not criminal. 



58 Essay on Milton 

verted or perverted by quartos. A few more days, and 
this essay will follow the Defensio Populi to the dust 
and silence of the upper shelf. The name of its author, 
and the remarkable circumstances attending its publica- 
5 tion, will secure to it a certain degree of attention. For 
a month or two it will occupy a few minutes of chat in 
every drawing-room, and a few columns in every maga- 
zine ; and it will then, to borrow the elegant language 
of the playbills, be withdrawn, to make room for the 

10 forthcoming novelties. 

We wish however to avail ourselves of the interest, 
transient as it may be, which this work has excited. 
The dexterous Capuchins never choose to preach on 
the Hfe and miracles of a saint, till they have awakened 

15 the devotional feelings of their auditors by exhibiting 
some relic of him, a thread of his garment, a lock of 
his hair, or a drop of his blood. On the same principle, 
we intend to take advantage of the late interesting dis- 
covery, and, while this memorial of a great and good 

20 man is still in the hands of all, to say something of 
his moral and intellectual qualities. Nor, we are con- 
vinced, will the severest of our readers blame us if, on 
an occasion like the present, we turn for a short time 
from the topics of the day, to commemorate, in all love 

25 and reverence, the genius and virtues of John Milton, 
the poet, the statesman, the philosopher, the glory of Eng- 
lish Hterature, the champion and the martyr of English 
liberty. 

It is by his poetry that Milton is best known ; and it is 



^ 



Essay on Milton 59 

of his poetry that we wish first to speak. By the general 
suffrage of the civilised world, his place has been assigned 
among the greatest masters of the art. His detractors, 
however, though outvoted, have not been silenced. 
There are many critics, and some of great name, who 5 
contrive in the same breath to extol the poems and 
to decry the poet. The works, they acknowledge, con- 
sidered in themselves, may be classed among the noblest 
productions of the human mind. But they will not allow 
the author to rank with those great men, who, born in the 10 
infancy of civilisation, supplied, by their own powers, 
the want of instruction, and, though destitute of models 
themselves, bequeathed to posterity models which defy 
imitation. Milton, it is said, inherited what his predeces- 
sors created ; he hved in an enlightened age ; he received 15 
a finished education ; and we must therefore, if we would 
form a just estimate of his powers, make large deductions 
in consideration of these advantages. 

We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical as the 
remark may appear, that no poet has ever had to struggle 20 
with more unfavourable circumstances than Milton. He 
doubted, as he has himself owned, whether he had not 
been born " an age too late." For this notion Johnson 
has thought fit to make him the butt of much clumsy 
ridicule. The poet, we believe, understood the nature 25 
of his art better than the critic. He knew that his poeti- 
cal genius derived no advantage from the civilisation 
which surrounded him, or from the learning which he < 
had acquired; and he looked back with something 



6o Essay on Milton 

like regret to the ruder age of simple words and vivid 
impressions. 

We think that, as civilisation advances, poetry almost 
necessarily declines. Therefore, though we fervently 
5 admire those great works of imagination which have ap- 
peared in dark ages, we do not admire them the more 
because they have appeared in dark ages. On the con- 
trary, we hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof ■ 
of genius is a great poem produced in a civilised age. 

10 We cannot understand why those who beheve in that 
most orthodox article of literary faith, that the earliest 
poets are generally the best, should wonder at the rule 
as if it were the exception. Surely the uniformity of the 
phoenomenon indicates a corresponding uniformity in the 

15 cause. 

The fact is, that common observers reason from the 
progress of the experimental sciences to that of the 
imitative arts. The improvement of the former is grad- 
ual and slow. Ages are spent in collecting materials,- 

20 ages more in separating and combining them. Even 
when a system has been formed, there is still some- 
thing to add, to alter, or to reject. Every genera- 
tion enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by 
antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented by fresh 

25 acquisitions, to future ages. In these pursuits, therefore, 
the first speculators lie under great disadvantages, and, 
even when they fail, are entitled to praise. Their pupils, 
with far inferior intellectual powers, speedily surpass them 
in actual attainments. Every girl who has read Mrs. 



Essay on Milton 6i 

Marcet's little dialogues on Political Economy could 
teach Montague or Walpole many lessons in finance. 
Any intelligent man may now, by resolutely applying 
himself for a few years to mathematics, learn more than 
the great Newton knew after half a century of study 5 
and meditation. 

But it is not thus with music, with painting, or with 
sculpture. Still less is it thus with poetry. The prog- 
ress of refinement rarely supplies these arts with better 
objects of imitation. It may indeed improve the instru- 10 
ments which are necessary to the mechanical operations 
of the musician, the sculptor, and the painter. But lan- 
guage, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his pur- 
pose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first 
perceive, and then abstract. They advance from partic- 15 
ular images to general terms. Hence the vocabulary of 
an enlightened society is philosophical, that of a half- 
civilised people is poetical. 

This change in the language of men is partly the cause 
and partly the effect of a corresponding change in the 20 
nature of their intellectual operations, of a change by 
which science gains and poetry loses. Generalisation 
is necessary to the advancement of knowledge ; but par- 
ticularity is indispensable to the creations of the imagina- , 
tion. In proportion as men know more and think more, 25 
they look less at individuals and more at classes. ) They 
therefore make better theories and worse poems. They 
give us vague phrases instead of images, and personified 
qualities instead of men. They may be better able to 



62 Essay on Milton 

analyse human nature than their predecessors. But 
analysis is not the business of the poet. His office is to 
portray, not to dissect. He may beheve in a moral sense, 
like Shaftesbury ; he may refer all human actions to self- 
5 interest, like Helvetius ; or he may never think about the 
matter at all. • His creed on such subjects will no more 
influence his poetry, properly so called, than the notions 
which a painter may have conceived respecting the 
lacrymal glands, or the circulation of the blood, will affect 

10 the tears of his Niobe, or the blushes of his Aurora. If 
Shakespeare had written a book on the motives of human 
actions, it is by no means certain that it would have been 
a good one. It is extremely improbable that it would 
have contained half so much able reasoning on the sub- 

i5Ject as is to be found in the Fable of the Bees. But 
could Mandeville have created an lago ? Well as he knew 
how to resolve characters into their elements, would he 
have been able to combine those elements in such a man- 
ner as to make up a man, a real, living, individual man? 

2o Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy 
poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind, if any 
thing which gives so m.uch pleasure ought to be called 
unsoundness. By poetry we mean not all writing in 
verse, nor even all good writing in verse. Our defini- 

25 tion excludes many metrical compositions which, on 
other grounds, deserve the highest praise. By poetry 
we mean the art of employing words in such a manner 
as to produce an illusion on the imagination, the art 
of doing by means of words what the painter does by 



Essay on Milton 63 

means of colours. Thus the greatest of poets ^ has 
described it, in lines universally admired for the vigour 
and felicity of their diction, and still more valuable on 
account of the just notion which they convey of the art 
in which he excelled : 5 

" As imagination bodies forth 
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
A local habitation and a name." 

These are the fruits of the " fine frenzy " which he 10 
ascribes to the poet, — a fine frenzy doubtless, but still 
a frenzy. Truth, indeed, is essential to poetry ; but it 
is the truth of madness. The reasonings are just; but 
the premises are false. After the first suppositions have 
been made, every thing ought to be consistent ; but those 15 
first suppositions require a degree of credulity which 
almost amounts to a partial and temporary derangement 
of the intellect. Hence of all people children are the 
most imaginative. They abandon themselves without 
reserve to every illusion. Every image which is strongly 20 
presented to their mental eye produces on them the 
effect of reality. No man, whatever his sensibility may 
be, is ever affected by Hamlet or Lear, as a little girl is 
affected by the story of poor Red Riding-hood. She 
knows that it is all false, that wolves cannot speak, that 25 
there are no wolves in England. Yet in spite of her 
knowledge she believes ; she weeps ; she trembles ; she 
dares not go into a dark room lest she should feel the 
1 Shakespeare. 



64 Essay on Milton 

teeth of the monster at her throat. Such is the despotism 
of the imagination over uncultivated minds. 

In a rude state of society men are children with a 
greater variety of ideas. It is therefore in such a state 
5 of society that we may expect to find the poetical tem- 
perament in its highest perfection. In an enlightened 
age there will be much intelHgence, much science, much 
philosophy, abundance of just classification and subtle 
analysis, abundance of wit and eloquence, abundance of 

10 verses, and even of good ones; but little poetry. Men 
will judge and compare ; but they will not create. They 
will talk about the old poets, and comment on them, 
and to a certain degree enjoy them. But they will 
scarcely be able to conceive the effect which poetry pro- 

15 duced on their ruder ancestors, the agony, the ecstasy, 
the plenitude of belief. The Greek Rhapsodists, accord- 
ing to Plato, could scarce recite Homer without falling 
into convulsions. The Mohawk hardly feels the scalping 
knife while he shouts his death-song. The power which 

20 the ancient bards of Wales and Germany exercised over 
their auditors seems to modern readers almost miraculous. 
Such feelings are very rare in a civilised community, and 
most rare among those who participate most in its im- 
provements. They linger longest among the peasantry. 

25 Poetry produces an illusion on the eye of the mind, 
as a magic lantern produces an illusion on the eye of the 
body. And, as the magic lantern acts best in a dark 
room, poetry effects its purpose most completely in a dark 
age. As the light of knowledge breaks in upon its 



Essay on Milton 65 

exhibitions, as the outhnes of certainty become more 
and more definite and the shades of probabiUty more 
and more distinct, the hues and lineaments of the phan- 
toms which the poet calls up grow fainter and fainter. 
We cannot unite the incompatible advantages of reality 5 
and deception, the clear discernment of truth and the 
exquisite enjoyment of fiction, ^j 

He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires 
to be a great poet, must first become a little child. He 
must take to pieces the whole web of his mind. He 10 
must unlearn much of that knowledge which has perhaps 
constituted hitherto his chief title to superiority. His 
very talents will be a hindrance to him. His difficulties 
will be proportioned to his proficiency in the pursuits 
which are fashionable among his contemporaries ; and 15 
that proficiency will in general be proportioned to the 
vigour and activity of his mind. And it is well if, after 
all his sacrifices and exertions, his works do not resemble 
a lisping man or a modern ruin. We have seen in our 
own time great talents, intense labour, and long medita- 20 
tion, employed in this struggle against the spirit of the 
age, and employed, we will not say absolutely in vain, 
but with dubious success and feeble applause. 

If these reasonings be just, no poet has ever triumphed 
over greater difficulties than Milton. He received a 25 
learned education : he was a profound and elegant classi- 
cal scholar : he had studied all the mysteries of Rabbinical 
literature : he was intimately acquainted with every lan- 
guage of modern Europe, from which either pleasure or 

mac's ess. on MILTON — 5 



66 Essay on Milton 

information was then to be derived. He was perhaps 
the only great poet of later times who has been distin- 
guished by the excellence of his Latin verse. The 
genius of Petrarch was scarcely of the first order ; and his 
5 poems in the ancient language, though much praised by 
those who have never read them, are wretched composi- 
tions. Cowley, with all his admirable wit and ingenuity, 
had little imagination : nor indeed do we think his classi- 
cal diction comparable to that of Milton. The authority 

lo of Johnson is against us on this point. But Johnson had 
studied the bad writers of the middle ages till he had 
become utterly insensible to the Augustan elegance, and 
was as ill qualified to judge between two Latin styles as 
an habitual drunkard to set up for a wine-taster. 

15 Versification in a dead language is an exotic, a far- 
fetched, costly, sickly imitation of that which elsewhere 
may be found in healthful and spontaneous perfection. 
The soils on which this rarity flourishes are in general 
as ill suited to the production of vigorous native poetry 

20 as the flower-pots of a hothouse to the growth of oaks. 
That the author of the Paradise Lost should have written 
the Epistle to Manso was truly wonderful. Never before 
were such marked originality and such exquisite mimicry 
found together. Indeed in all the Latin poems of Milton 

25 the artificial manner indispensable to such works is admir- 
ably preserved, while, at the same time, his genius gives 
to them a peculiar charm, an air of nobleness and free- 
dom, which distinguishes them from all other writings 
of the same class. They remind us of the amusements 



Essay on Milton 67 

of those angelic warriors who composed the cohort of 
Gabriel : 

" About him exercised heroic games 
The unarmed youth of heaven. But o'er their heads 
Celestial armoury, shield, helm, and spear. 
Hung high, with diamond flaming and with gold." 

We cannot look upon the sportive exercises for which 
the genius of Milton ungirds itself, without catching a 
glimpse of the gorgeous and terrible panoply which it is 
accustomed to wear. The strength of his imagination 
triumphed over every obstacle. So intense and ardent 
was the fire of his mind, that it not only was not suffo- 
cated beneath the weight of fuel, but penetrated the 
whole superincumbent mass with its own heat and 
radiance. 

It is not our intention to attempt any thing like a com- 
plete examination of the poetry of Milton. The public 
has long been agreed as to the merit of the most re- 
markable passages, the incomparable harmony of the 
numbers,^ and the excellence of that style, which no 
rival has been able to equal, and no parodist to degrade, 
which displays in their highest perfection the idiomatic 
powers of the English tongue, and to which every ancient 
and every modern language has contributed something of 
grace, of energy, or of music. In the vast field of criti- 
cism on which we are entering, innumerable reapers have 
already put their sickles. Yet the harvest is so abundant 

1 The versification. 



68 Essay on Milton 



that the negh'gent search of a straggUng gleaner may be 
rewarded with a sheaf. 

The most striking characteristic of the poetry of Milton 
is the extreme remoteness of the associations by means 
5 of which it acts on the reader. Its eifect is produced, 
not so much by what it expresses, as by what it suggests ; 
not so much by the ideas which it directly conveys, as by 
other ideas which are connected with them. He electri- 
fies the mind through conductors. The most unimagina- 

lotive man must understand the Iliad. Homer gives him 
no choice, and requires from him no exertion, but takes the 
whole upon himself, and sets the images in so clear a light, 
that it is impossible to be blind to them. The works of 
Milton cannot be comprehended or enjoyed, unless the 

15 mind of the reader co-operate with that of the writer. 
He does not paint a finished picture, or play for a mere 
passive listener. He sketches, and leaves others to fill 
up the outline. He strikes the key-note, and expects his 
hearer to make out the melody. 

20 We often hear of the magical influence of poetry. 
The expression in general means nothing : but, applied 
to the writings of Milton, it is most appropriate. His 
poetry acts like an incantation. Its merit lies less in its 
obvious meaning than in its occult power. There would 

25 seem, at first sight, to be no more in his words than in 
other words. But they are words of enchantment. No 
sooner are they pronounced, than the past is present and 
the distant near. New forms of beauty start at once into 
existence, and all the burial-places of the memory give 



Essay on Milton 69 

up their dead. Change the structure of the sentence ; 
substitute one synonyme for another, and the whole effect 
is destroyed. The spell loses its power ; and he who 
should then hope to conjure with it would find himself 
as much mistaken as Cassim in the Arabian tale, when he 5 
stood crying, " Open Wheat," " Open Barley," to the 
door which obeyed no sound but " Open Sesame." The 
miserable failure of Uryden in his attempt to translate 
into his own diction some parts of the Paradise Lost, is a 
remarkable instance of this. 10 

In support of these observations we may remark, that 
scarcely any passages in the poems of Milton are more 
generally known or more frequently repeated than those 
which are little more than muster-rolls of names. They 
are not always more appropriate or more melodious than 15 
other names. But they are charmed names. Every one 
of them is the first Unk in a long chain of associated 
ideas. Like the dwelling-place of our infancy revisited 
in manhood, hke the song of our country heard in a 
strange land, they produce upon us an effect wholly 20 
independent of their intrmsic value. One transports 
us back to a remote period of history. Another places 
us among the novel scenes and manners of a distant 
region. A third evokes all the dear classical recollec- 
tions of childhood, the school-room, the dog-eared Virgil, 25 
the holiday, and the prize. A fourth brings before us 
the splendid phantoms of chivalrous romance, the trophied 
lists, the embroidered housings, the quaint devices, the 
haunted forests, the enchanted gardens, the achieve- 



yo Essay on Milton 

ments of enamoured knights, and the smiles of rescued 
princesses. 

In none of the works of Milton is his pecuhar manner 
more happily displayed than in the Allegro and the Pen- 
5 serosa. It is impossible to conceive that the mechanism 
of language can be brought to a more exquisite degree 
of perfection. These poems differ from others, as attar of 
roses differs from ordinary rose water, the close packed 
essence from the thin diluted mixture. They are indeed 

10 not so much poems, as collections of hints, from each of 
which the reader is to make out a poem for himself. 
Every epithet is a text for a stanza. 

The Comus and the Samson Agonistes are works which, 
though of very different merit, offer some marked points 

15 of resemblance. Both are lyric poems in the form of 
plays. There are perhaps no two kinds of composition 
so essentially dissimilar as the drama and the ode. The 
business of the dramatist is to keep himself out of sight, 
and to let nothing appear but his characters. As soon as 

20 he attracts notice to his personal feelings, the illusion is 
broken. The effect is as unpleasant as that which is pro- 
duced on the stage by the voice of a prompter or the 
entrance of a scene-shifter. Hence it was, that the 
tragedies of Byron were his least successful performances. 

25 They resemble those pasteboard pictures invented by the 
friend of children, Mr. Newbery, in which a single mov- 
able head goes round twenty different bodies, so that the 
same face looks out upon us successively, from the uni- 
form of a hussar, the furs of a judge, and the rags of a 



Essay on Milton 71 

beggar. In all the characters, patriots and tyrants, haters 
and lovers, the frown and sneer of Harold were discerni- 
ble in an instant. But this species of egotism, though 
fatal to the drama, is the inspiration of the ode. It is the 
part of the lyric poet to abandon himself, without reserve, 5 
to his own emotions. 

Between these hostile elements many great men have 
endeavoured to effect an amalgamation, but never with 
complete success. The Greek Drama, on the model of 
which the Samson was written, sprang from the Ode. 10 
The dialogue was ingrafted on the chorus, and naturally 
partook of its character. The genius of the greatest of 
the Athenian dramatists co-operated with the circum- 
stances under which tragedy made its first appearance, 
^schylus was, head and heart, a lyric poet. In his time, 15 
the Greeks had far more intercourse with the East than 
in the days of Homer; and they had not yet acquired 
that immense superiority in war, in science, and in the 
arts, which, in the following generation, led them to treat 
the Asiatics with contempt. From the narrative of 20 
Herodotus it should seem that they still looked up, with 
the veneration of disciples, to Egypt and Assyria. At 
this period, accordingly, it was natural that the literature 
of Greece should be tinctured with the Oriental style. 
And that style, we think, is discernible in the works of 25 
Pindar and ^schylus. The latter often reminds us of 
the Hebrew writers. The book of Job, indeed, in con- 
duct and diction, bears a considerable resemblance to 
some of his dramas. Considered as plays, his works are 



72 Essay on Milton 

absurd ; considered as choruses, they are above all praise. 
If, for instance, we examine the address of Clytaemnestra 
to Agamemnon on his return, or the description of the 
seven Argive chiefs, by the principles of dramatic writ- 
5 ing, we shall instantly condemn them as monstrous. But 
if we forget the characters, and think only of the poetry, 
we shall admit that it has never been surpassed in energy 
and magnificence. Sophocles made the Greek drama as 
dramatic as was consistent with its original form. His 

10 portraits of men have a sort of similarity ; but it is the 
similarity not of a painting, but of a bas-relief. It sug- 
gests a resemblance; but it does not produce an illusion. 
Euripides attempted to carry the reform further. But it 
was a task far beyond his powers, perhaps beyond any 

15 powers. Instead of correcting what was bad, he de- 
stroyed what was excellent. He substituted crutches for 
stilts, bad sermons for good odes. 

Milton, it is well known, admired Euripides highly, 
much more highly than, in our opinion, Euripides de- 

20 served. Indeed the caresses which this partiality leads 
our countrymen to bestow on " sad Electra's poet," some- 
times remind us of the beautiful Queen of Fairy-land 
kissing the long ears of Bottom. At all events, there can 
be no doubt that this veneration for the Athenian, whether 

25 just or not, was injurious to the Samson Agonistes. Had 
Milton taken ^schylus for his model, he would have 
given himself up to the lyric inspiration, and poured out 
profusely all the treasures of his mind, without bestowing 
a thought on those dramatic proprieties which the nature 



Essay on Milton 73 

of the work rendered it impossible to preserve. In the 
attempt to reconcile things in their own nature inconsis- 
tent he has failed, as every one else must have failed. 
We cannot identify ourselves with the characters, as in a 
good play. We cannot identify ourselves with the poet, 5 
as in a good ode. The conflicting ingredients, like an 
acid and an alkah mixed, neutralise each other. We are 
by no means insensible to the merits of this celebrated 
piece, to the severe dignity of the style, the graceful and 
pathetic solemnity of the opening speech, or the wild and 10 
barbaric melody which gives so striking an effect to the 
choral passages. But we think it, we confess, the least 
successful effort of the genius of Milton. 

The Comus is framed on the model of the Itahan 
Masque, as the Samson is framed on the model of the 15 
Greek Tragedy. It is certainly the noblest performance 
of the kind which exists in any language. It is as far 
superior to the Faithful Shepherdess, as the Faithful 
Shepherdess is to the Aminta, or the Aminta to the 
Pastor Fido. It was well for Milton that he had here no 20 
Euripides to mislead him. He understood and loved 
the literature of modern Italy. But he did not feel for it 
the same veneration which he entertained for the remains 
of Athenian and Roman poetry, consecrated by so many 
lofty and endearing recollections. The faults, moreover, 25 
of his Italian predecessors were of a kind to which his 
mind had a deadly antipathy. He could stoop to a plain 
style, sometimes even to a bald style ; but false brilliancy 
was his utter aversion. His Muse had no objection to 



74 Essay on Milton 

a russet attire; but she turned with disgust from the 
finery of Guarini, as tawdry and as paltry as the rags of 
a chimney-sweeper on May-Day. Whatever ornaments 
she wears are of massive gold, not only dazzling to the 
5 sight, but capable of standing the severest test of the 
crucible. 

Milton attended in the Co7nus to the distinction which 
he afterwards neglected in the Samson. He made his 
Masque what it ought to be, essentially lyrical, and dra- 

10 matic only in semblance. He has not attempted a fruit- 
less struggle against a defect inherent in the nature of that 
species of composition ; and he has therefore succeeded, 
wherever success was not impossible. The speeches must 
be read as majestic soliloquies ; and he who so reads them 

15 will be enraptured with their eloquence, their sublimity, 
and their music. The interruptions of the dialogue, how- 
ever, impose a constraint upon the writer, and break the 
illusion of the reader. The finest passages are those which 
are lyric in form as well as in spirit. " I should much 

20 commend," says the excellent Sir Henry Wotton in a let- 
ter to Milton, " the tragical part if the lyrical did not rav- 
ish me with a certain Dorique dehcacy in your songs and 
odes, whereunto, I must plainly confess to you, I have seen 
yet nothing parallel in our language." The criticism was 

25 just. It is when Milton escapes from the shackles of the 
dialogue, when he is discharged from the labour of uniting 
two incongruous styles, when he is at liberty to indulge 
his choral raptures without reserve, that he rises even 
above himself. Then, like his own good Genius bursting 



Essay on Milton 75 

from the earthly form and weeds of Thyrsis, he stands 
forth in celestial freedom and beauty; he seems to cry 

exultingly, 

" Now my task is smoothly done, 
I can fly or I can run," 5 

to skim the earth, to soar above the clouds, to bathe in 
the Elysian dew of the rainbow, and to inhale the balmy 
smells of nard and cassia, which the musky wings of the 
zephyr scatter through the cedared alleys of the Hesperides. 

There are several of the minor poems of Milton on which lo 
we would willingly make a few remarks. Still more will- 
ingly would we enter into a detailed examination of that 
admirable poem, the Paradise Regained, which, strangely 
enough, is scarcely ever mentioned except as an instance 
of the bhndness of the parental affection which men of 15 
letters bear towards the offspring of their intellects. That 
Milton was mistaken in preferring this work, excellent as 
it is, to the Paradise Lost, we readily admit. But we are 
sure that the superiority of the Paradise Lost to the Para- 
dise Regained is not more decided, than the superiority 20 
of the Paradise Regained to every poem which has since 
made its appearance. Our limits, however, prevent us 
from discussing the point at length. We hasten on to 
that extraordinary production which the general suffrage 
of critics has placed in the highest class of human 25 
compositions. 

The only poem of modern times which can be com- 
pared with the Paradise Lost is the Divine Comedy. The 
subject of Milton, in some points, resembled that of Dante ; 



76 Essay on Milton 

but he has treated it in a widely different manner. We 
cannot, we think, better illustrate our opinion respecting 
our own great poet, than by contrasting him with the 
father of Tuscan literature. 
5 The poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante, as the 
hieroglyphics of Egypt differed from the picture-writing 
of Mexico. The images which Dante employs speak for 
themselves ; they stand simply for what they are. Those 
of Milton have a signification w^iich is often discernible 

10 only to the initiated. Their value depends less on what 
they directly represent than on what they remotely sug- 
gest. However strange, however grotesque, may be the 
appearance which Dante undertakes to describe, he never 
shrinks from describing it. He gives us the shape, the 

15 colour, the sound, the smell, the taste ; he counts the 
numbers ; he measures the size. His similes are the illus- 
trations of a traveller. Unlike those of other poets, and 
especially of Milton, they are introduced in a plain, busi- 
ness-like manner ; not for the sake of any beauty in the 

20 objects from which they are drawn; not for the sake of 
any ornament which they may impart to the poem ; but 
simply in order to make the meaning of the writer as clear 
to the reader as it is to himself. The ruins of the preci- 
pice which led from the sixth to the seventh circle of hell 

25 were like those of the rock which fell into the Adige on 
the south of Trent. The cataract of Phlegethon was like 
that of Aqua Cheta at the monastery of St. Benedict. The 
place where the heretics were confined in burning tombs 
resembled the vast cemetery of Aries. 



Essay on Milton 77 

/ Now let us compare with the exact details of Dante the 
dim intimations of Milton. We will cite a few examples. 
The English poet has never thought of taking the measure 
of Satan. He gives us merely a vague idea of vast bulk. 
In one passage the fiend lies stretched out huge in length, 5 
floating many a rood, equal in size to the earth-born ene- 
mies of Jove, or to the sea-monster which the mariner 
mistakes for an* island. When he addresses himself to 
battle against the guardian angels, he stands like Teneriffe 
or Atlas ; his stature reaches the sky. Contrast with these 10 
descriptions the lines in which Dante has described the 
gigantic spectre of Nimrod. " His face seemed to me as 
long and as broad as the ball of St. Peter's at Rome ; and 
his other limbs were in proportion ; so that the bank, 
which concealed him from the waist downwards, never- 15 
theless showed so much of him that three tall Germans 
would in vain have attempted to reach his hair." We are 
sensible that we do no justice to the admirable style of 
the Florentine poet. But Mr. Gary's translation is not at , 
hand; and our version, however rude, is sufficient to 20 
illustrate our meaning. 

Once more, compare the lazar-house in the eleventh 
book of the Paradise Lost with the last ward of Mal&bolge 
in Dante. Milton avoids the loathsome details, and takes 
refuge in indistinct but solemn and tremendous imagery, 25 
Despair hurrying from couch to couch to mock the 
wretches with his attendance. Death shaking his dart 
over them, but, in spite of supplications, delaying to 
strike. ^Vhat says Dante ? " There was such a moan 



78 Essay on Milton 

there as there would be if all the sick who, between July 
and September, are in the hospitals of Valdichiana, and 
of the Tuscan swamps, and of Sardinia, were in one pit 
together; and such a stench was issuing forth as is wont 

5 to issue from decayed limbs." 

We will not take upon ourselves the invidious office of 
settling precedency between two such writers. Each in 
his own department is incomparable ; and each, we may 
remark, has wisely, or fortunately, taken a subject adapted 

10 to exhibit his peculiar talent to the greatest advantage. 
The Divine Comedy is a personal narrative. Dante is 
the eye-witness and ear-witness of that which he relates. 
He is the very man who has heard the tormented spirits 
crying out for the second death, who has read the dusky 

15 characters on the portal within which there is no hope, 
who has hidden his face from the terrors of the Gorgon, 
who has fled from the hooks and the seething pitch of 
Barbariccia and Draghignazzo. His own hands have 
grasped the shaggy sides of Lucifer.^ His own feet have 

20 climbed the mountain of expiation. His own brow has 
been marked by the purifying angel. The reader would 
throw aside such a tale in incredulous disgust, unless it 
were told with the strongest air of veracity, with a sobriety 
even in its horrors, with the greatest precision and multi- 

25 plicity in its details. The narrative of Milton in this re- 
spect differs from that of Dante, as the adventures of 
Amadis differ from those of Gulliver. The author of 
Amadis would have made his book ridiculous if he had 
1 Satan. 



Essay on Milton 79 

introduced those minute particulars which give such a 
charm to the work of Swift, the nautical observations, the 
affected dehcacy about names, the official documents 
transcribed at full length, and all the unmeaning gossip 
and scandal of the court, springing out of nothing, and 5 
tending to nothing. We are not shocked at being told 
that a man who lived, nobody knows when, saw many very 
strange sights, and we can easily abandon ourselves to 
the illusion of the romance. But when Lemuel Gulliver, 
surgeon, resident at Rotherhithe, tells of pygmies and 10 
giants, flying islands, and philosophising horses, nothing 
but such circumstantial touches could produce for a sin- 
gle moment a deception on the imagination. 

Of all the poets who have introduced into their works 
the agency of supernatural beings, Milton has succeeded 15 
best. Here Dante decidedly yields to him : and as this 
is a point on which many rash and ill-considered judg- 
ments have been pronounced, we feel inchned to dwell 
on it a little longer. The most fatal error which a poet 
can possibly commit in the management of his machinery, 20 
is that of attempting to philosophise too much. Milton 
has been often censured for ascribing to spirits many 
functions of which spirits must be incapable. But these 
objections, though sanctioned by eminent names, originate, 
we venture to say, in profound ignorance of the art of 25 
poetry. 

What is spirit ? What are our own minds, the portion 
of spirit with which we are best acquainted ? We observe 
certain phsenomena. We cannot explain them into mate- 



8o Essay on Milton 

rial causes. We therefore infer that there exists some- 
thing which is not material. But of this something we 
have no idea. We can define it only by negatives. We 
can reason about it only by symbols. We use the word ; 

5 but we have no image of the thing ; and the business of 
poetry is with images, and not with words. The poet 
uses words indeed ; but they are merely the instruments 
of his art, not its objects. They are the materials which 
he is to dispose in such a manner as to present a picture 

10 to the mental eye. And if they are not so disposed, they 
are no more entitled to be called poetry than a bale of 
canvas and a box of colours to be called a painting. 

Logicians may reason about abstractions. But the 
great mass of men must have images. The strong ten- 

15 dency of the multitude in all ages and nations to idolatry 
can be explained on no other principle. The first inhab- 
itants of Greece, there is reason to believe, worshipped 
one invisible Deity. But the necessity of having some- 
thing more definite to adore, produced, in a few centuries, 

20 the innumerable crowd of Gods and Goddesses. In like 
manner the ancient Persians thought it impious to exhibit 
the Creator under a human form. Yet even these trans- 
ferred to the Sun the worship which, in speculation, they 
considered due only to the Supreme Mind. ^ The history 

25 of the Jews is the record of a continued struggle between 
pure Theism, supported by the most terrible sanctions, 
and the strangely fascinating desire of having some visible 
and tangible object of adoration. Perhaps none of the 
secondary causes which Gibbon has assigned for the 



Essay on Milton 8i 

rapidity' with which Christianity spread over the world, 
while Judaism scarcely ever acquired a proselyte, operated 
more powerfully than this feeling. God, the uncreated, 
the incomprehensible, the invisible, attracted few wor- 
shippers. A philosopher might admire so noble a con- 5 
ception : but the crowd turned away in disgust from 
words which presented no image to their minds. It was 
before Deity embodied in a human form, walking among 
men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning on their 
bosoms, weeping over their graves, slumbering in the 10 
manger, bleeding on the cross, that the prejudices of the 
Synagogue, and the doubts of the Academy, and the pride 
of the Portico, and the fasces of the Lictor, and the swords 
of thirty legions, were humbled in the dust.'^ Soon after 
Christianity had achieved its triumph, the principle which 15 
had assisted it began to corrupt it. It became a new 
Paganism. Patron saints assumed the offices of house- 
hold gods. St. George took the place of Mars. St. Elmo 
consoled the mariner for the loss of Castor and Pollux. 
The Virgin Mother and Cecilia succeeded to Venus and 20 
the Muses. The fascination of sex and loveliness was 
again joined to that of celestial dignity ; and the homage 
of chivalry was blended with that of religion. Reformers 
have often made a stand against these feelings ; but never 
with more than apparent and partial success. The men 2r 
who demolished the images in cathedrals have not always 
been able to demolish those which were enshrined in their 
minds. It would not be difficult to show that in politics 
the same rule holds good. Doctrines, we are afraid, 

mac's ess. on MILTON — 6 



82 Essay on Milton 

must generally be embodied before they can excite a 
strong public feeling. The multitude is more easily 
interested for the most unmeaning badge, or the most 
insignificant name, than for the most important principle. 

5 From these considerations, we infer that no poet, who 
should affect that metaphysical accuracy for the want of 
which Milton has been blamed, would escape a disgrace- 
ful failure. Still, however, there was another extreme 
which, though far less dangerous, was also to be avoided. 

10 The imaginations of men are in a great measure under 
the control of their opinions. The most exquisite art of 
poetical colouring can produce no illusion, when it is em- 
ployed to represent that which is at once perceived to 
be incongruous and absurd. Milton wrote in an age of 

15 philosophers and theologians. It was necessary, there- 
fore, for him to abstain from giving such a shock to their 
understandings as might break the charm which it was 
his object to throw over their imaginations. This is the 
real explanation of the indistinctness and inconsistency 

20 with which he has often been reproached. Dr. Johnson 
acknowledges that it was absolutely necessary that the 
spirits should be clothed with material forms. " But," 
says he, " the poet should have secured the consistency 
of his system by keeping immateriality out of sight, and 

25 seducing the reader to drop it from his thoughts." This 
is easily said ; but what if Milton could not seduce his 
readers to drop immateriality from their thoughts ? What 
if the contrary opinion had taken so full a possession of 
the minds of men as to leave no room even for the half 



Essay on Milton 83 

belief which poetry requires? Such we suspect to have 
been the case. It was impossible for the poet to adopt 
altogether the material or the immaterial system. He 
therefore took his stand on the debatable ground. He 
left the whole in ambiguity. He has doubtless, by so 5 
doing, laid himself open to the charge of inconsistency. 
But, though philosophically in the wrong, we cannot but 
believe that he was poetically in the right. This task, 
which almost any other writer would have found im- 
practicable, was easy to him. The peculiar art which 10 
he possessed of communicating his meaning circuitously 
through a long succession of associated ideas, and of inti- 
mating more than he expressed, enabled him to disguise 
those incongruities which he could not avoid. 

Poetry which relates to the beings of another world 15 
ought to be at once mysterious and picturesque. That 
of Milton is so. That of Dante is picturesque indeed 
beyond any that ever was written. Its effect approaches 
to that produced by the pencil or the chisel. But it is 
picturesque to the exclusion of all mystery. This is a 20 
fault on the right side, a fault inseparable from the plan 
of Dante's poem, which, as we have already observed, 
rendered the utmost accuracy of description necessary. 
Still it is a fault. The supernatural agents excite an in- 
terest ; but it is not the interest which is proper to super- 25 
natural agents. We feel that we could talk to the ghosts 
and daemons, without any emotion of unearthly awe. 
We could, hke Don Juan, ask them to supper, and eat 
heartily in their company. Dante's angels are good men 



84 Essay on Milton 

with wings. His devils are spiteful ugly executioners. 
His dead men are merely living men in strange situations. 
The scene which passes between the poet and Farinata 
is justly celebrated. Still, Farinata in the burning tomb 
5 is exactly what Farinata would have been at an auto dafe. 
Nothing can be more touching than the first interview of 
Dante and Beatrice. Yet what is it, but a lovely woman 
chiding, with sweet austere composure, the lover for 
whose affection she is grateful, but whose vices she repro- 

10 bates? The feehngs which give the passage its charm 
would suit the streets of Florence as well as the summit 
of the Mount of Purgatory. 

The spirits of Milton are unlike those of almost all 
other writers. His fiends, in particular, are wonderful 

15 creations. They are not metaphysical abstractions. They 
are not wicked men. They are not ugly beasts. They 
have no horns, no tails, none of the fee-faw-fum of Tasso 
and Klopstock. They have just enough in common with 
human nature to be intelligible to human beings. Their 

20 characters are, like their forms, marked by a certain dim 
resemblance to those of men, but exaggerated to gigantic 
dimensions, and veiled in mysterious gloom. 

Perhaps the gods and daemons of ^schylus may best 
bear a comparison with the angels and devils of Milton. 

25 The style of the Athenian had, as we have remarked, 
something of the Oriental character ; and the same pecu- 
harity may be traced in his mythology. It has nothing 
of the amenity and elegance which we generally find in 
the superstitions of Greece. All is rugged, barbaric, and 



Essay on Milton 85 

colossal. The legends of ^schylus seem to harmo- 
nise less with the fragrant groves and graceful porticoes 
in which his countrymen paid their vows to the God of 
Light and Goddess of Desire, than with those huge and 
grotesque labyrinths of eternal granite in which Egypt 5 
enshrined her mystic Osiris, or in which Hindostan still 
bows down to her seven-headed idols. His favourite 
gods are those of the elder generation, the sons of heaven 
and earth, compared with whom Jupiter himself was a strip- 
ling and an upstart, the gigantic Titans, and the inexorable 10 
Furies. Foremost among his creations of this class stands 
Prometheus, half fiend, half redeemer, the friend of man, 
the sullen and implacable enemy of heaven. Prometheus 
bears undoubtedly a considerable resemblance to the 
Satan of Milton. In both we find the same impatience 15 
of control, the same ferocity, the same unconquerable 
pride. In both characters also are mingled, though in 
very different proportions, some kind and generous feel- 
ings. Prometheus, however, is hardly superhuman 
enough. He talks too much of his chains and his uneasy 20 
posture : he is rather too much depressed and agitated. 
His resolution seems to depend on the knowledge which 
he possesses that he holds the fate of his torturer in his 
hands, and that the hour of his release will surely come. 
But Satan is a creature of another sphere. The might of 25 
his intellectual nature is victorious over the extremity of 
pain. Amidst agonies which cannot be conceived with- 
out horror, he dehberates, resolves, and even exults. 
Against the sword of Michael, against the thunder of 



86 Essay on Milton 

Jehovah, against the flaming lake, and the marl burning 
with solid fire, against the prospect of an eternity of un- 
intermitted misery, his spirit bears up unbroken, resting 
on its own innate energies, requiring no support from any 

5 thing external, nor even from hope itself. 

To return for a moment to the parallel which we have 
been attempting to draw between Milton and Dante, we 
would add that the poetry of these great men has in a 
considerable degree taken its character from their moral 

10 qualities. They are not egotists. They rarely obtrude 
their idiosyncrasies on their readers. They have nothing 
in common with those modern beggars for fame, who 
extort a pittance from the compassion of the inexperi- 
enced by exposing the nakedness and sores of their 

15 minds. Yet it would be difficult to name two writers 
whose works have been more completely, though unde- 
signedly, coloured by their personal feelings. 

The character of Milton was pecuHarly distinguished 
by loftiness of spirit ; that of Dante by intensity of feel- 

2oing. In every line of the Divine Comedy we discern 
the asperity which is produced by pride struggling with 
misery. There is perhaps no work in the world so 
deeply and uniformly sorrowful. The melancholy of 
Dante was no fantastic caprice. It was not, as far as at 

25 this distance of time can be judged, the effect of external 
circumstances. It was from within. Neither love nor 
glory, neither the conflicts of earth nor the hope of 
heaven could dispel it. It turned every consolation and 
every pleasure into its own nature. It resembled that 



Essay on Milton 87 

noxious Sardinian soil of which the intense bitterness is 
said to have been perceptible even in its honey. His 
mind was, in the noble language of the Hebrew poet/ " a 
land of darkness, as darkness itself, and where the light 
was as darkness." The gloom of his character discolours 5 
all the passions of men, and all the face of nature, and 
tinges with its own livid hue the flowers of Paradise and 
the glories of the eternal throne. All the portraits of 
him are singularly characteristic. No person can look on 
the features, noble even to ruggedness, the dark furrows 10 
of the cheek, the haggard and woful stare of the eye, the 
sullen and contempttlous curve of the lip, and doubt that 
they belong to a man too proud and too sensitive to be 
happy. 

Milton was, like Dante, a statesman and a lover ; and, 15 
like Dante, he had been unfortunate in ambition and in 
love. He had survived his health and his sight, the com- 
forts of his home, and the prosperity of his party. Of 
the great men by whom he had been distinguished at his 
entrance into life, some had been taken away from the 20 
evil to come ; some had carried into foreign cHmates 
their unconquerable hatred of oppression; some were 
pining in dungeons ; and some had poured forth their 
blood on scaffolds. Venal and Ucentious scribblers, with 
just sufficient talent to clothe the thoughts of a pandar in 25 
the style of a bellman, were now the favourite writers 
of the Sovereign and of the public. It was a loathsome 
herd, which could be compared to nothing so fitly as to 
1 Job X. 22. 



88 Essay on Milton 

f the rabble of Comus, grotesque monsters, half bestial, 
half human, dropping with wine, bloated with gluttony, 
and reeling in obscene dances. Amidst these that fair 
Muse was placed, like the chaste lady of the Masque, 
^ lofty, spotless, and serene, to be chattered at, and pointed 
at, and grinned at, by the whole rout of Satyrs and Gob- 
lins. If ever despondency and asperity could be excused 
in any man, they might have been excused in Milton. 
But the strength of his mind overcame every calamity. 

10 Neither blindness, nor gout, nor age, nor penury, nor 
domestic afflictions, nor pohtical disappointments, nor 
abuse, nor proscription, nor neglect, had power to disturb 
his sedate and majestic patience. His spirits do not 
seem to have been high, but they were singularly equable. 

15 His temper was serious, perhaps stern ; but it was a tem- 
per which no sufferings could render sullen or fretful. 
Such as it was when, on the eve of great events, he re- 
turned from his travels, in the prime of health and manly 
beauty, loaded with literary distinctions, and glowing with 

20 patriotic hopes, such it continued to be when, after hav- 
ing experienced every calamity which is incident to our 
nature, old, poor, sightless and disgraced, he retired to 
his hovel to die. 

Hence it was that, though he wrote the Paradise Lost 

S5 at a time of life when images of beauty and tenderness 
are in general beginning to fade, even from those minds 
in which they have not been effaced by anxiety and dis- 
appointment, he adorned it with all that is most lovely 
and delightful in the physical and in the moral world. 



Essay on Milton 89 

Neither Theocritus nor Ariosto had a finer or a more health-^-^ 
ful sense of the pleasantness of external objects, or loved 
better to luxuriate amidst sunbeams and flowers, the songs 
of nightingales, the juice of summer fruits, and the cool- 
ness of shady fountains. His conception of love unites 5 
all the voluptuousness of the Oriental harem, and all the 
gallantry of the chivalric tournament, with all the pure and 
quiet affection of an English fireside. His poetry reminds 
us of the miracles of Alpine scenery. Nooks and dells, 
beautiful as fairy-land, are embosomed in its most rugged 10 
and gigantic elevations. The roses and myrtles bloom 
unchilled on the verge of the avalanche. 

Traces, indeed, of the peculiar character of Milton may 
be found in all his works ; but it is most strongly displayed 
in the Sonnets. Those remarkable poems have been under- 15 
valued by critics who have not understood their nature. 
They have no epigrammatic point. There is none of the 
ingenuity of Filicaja^ in the thought, none of the hard and 
brilliant enamel of Petrarch ^ in the style. They are sim- 
ple but majestic records of the feelings of the poet ; as 20 
little tricked out for the public eye as his diary would 
have been. A victory, an expected attack upon the city, 
a momentary fit of depression or exultation, a jest thrown 
out against one of his books, a dream which for a short 
time restored to him that beautiful face over which the 25 
grave had closed for ever, led him to musings which, with- 
out effort, shaped themselves into verse. The unity of 
sentiment and severity of style which characterise these 
^ Italian poets. 



90 Essay on Milton 

little pieces remind us of the Greek Anthology, or perhaps 
still more of the Collects of the English Liturgy. The 
noble poem on the Massacres of Piedmont is strictly a 
collect in verse. 
5 The sonnets are more or less striking, according as the 
occasions which gave birth to them are more or less inter- 
esting. But they are, almost without exception, dignified 
by a sobriety and greatness of mind to which we know not 
where to look for a parallel. It would, indeed, be scarcely 

10 safe to draw any decided inferences as to the character of 
a writer from passages directly egotistical. But the quali- 
ties which we have ascribed to Milton, though perhaps 
most strongly marked in those parts of his works which 
treat of his personal feelings, are distinguishable in every 

15 page, and impart to all his writings, prose and poetry, 
EngUsh, Latin, and Italian, a strong family likeness. 

His public conduct was such as was to be expected from 
a man of a spirit so high and of an intellect so powerful. 
He Hved at one of the most memorable eras in the history 

20 of mankind, at the very crisis of the great conflict between 
Oromasdes and Arimanes, liberty and despotism, reason 
and prejudice. That great battle was fought for no single 
generation, for no single land. The destinies of the human 
race were staked on the same cast with the freedom of the 

25 English people. Then were first proclaimed those mighty 
principles which have since worked their way into the 
depths of the American forests, which have roused Greece 
from the slavery and degradation of two thousand years, and 
which, from one end of Europe to the other, have kindled 



Essay on Milton 91 

an unquenchable fire in the hearts of the oppressed, and 
loosed the knees of the oppressors with an unwonted fear. 
Of those principles, then struggling for their infant exist- 
ence, Milton was the most devoted and eloquent literary 
champion. We need not say how much we admire his 5 
public conduct. But we cannot disguise from ourselves 
that a large portion of his countrymen still think it unjus- 
tifiable. The civil war, indeed, has been more discussed, 
and is less understood, than any event in English history. 
The friends of liberty laboured under the disadvantage of 10 
which the Hon in the fable complained so bitterly. Though 
they were the conquerors, their enemies were the painters. 
As a body, the Roundheads had done their utmost to de- 
cry and ruin literature ; and literature was even with them, 
as, in the long run, it always is with its enemies. The 15 
best book on their side of the question is the charming 
narrative of Mrs. Hutchinson. May's History of the Par- 
liament is good ; but it breaks off at the most interesting 
crisis of the struggle. The performance of Ludlow is fool- 
ish and violent ; and most of the later writers who have 20 
espoused the same cause, Oldmixon for instance, and 
Catherine Macaulay, have, to say the least, been more 
distinguished by zeal than either by candour or by skill. 
On the other side are the most authoritative and the most 
popular historical works in our language, that of Claren- 25 
don, and that of Hume. The former is not only ably 
written and full of valuable information, but has also an 
air of dignity and sincerity which makes even the preju- 
dices and errors with which it abounds respectable. 



92 Essay on Milton 

Hume, from whose fascinating narrative the great mass 
of the reading pubhc are still contented to take their 
opinions, hated religion so much that he hated liberty for 
having been allied with religion, and has pleaded the 
5 cause of tyranny with the dexterity of an advocate while 
affecting the impartiality of a judge. 

The pubHc conduct of Milton must be approved or con- 
demned according as the resistance of the people to Charles 
the First shall appear to be justifiable or criminal. We 

lo shall therefore make no apology for dedicating a few pages 
to the discussion of that interesting and most important 
question. We shall not argue it on general grounds. 
We shall not recur to those primary principles from which 
the claim of any government to the obedience of its sub- 

15 jects is to be deduced. We are entitled to that vantage 
ground ; but we will relinquish it. We are, on this point, 
so confident of superiority, that we are not unwiUing to 
imitate the ostentatious generosity of those ancient knights, 
who vowed to joust without helmet or shield against all 

20 enemies, and to give their antagonists the advantage of 
sun and wind. We will take the naked constitutional 
question. We confidently affirm, that every reasoii which 
can be urged in favour of the Revolution of 1688 may "be 
urged with at least equal force in favour of what is called 

25 the Great Rebellion. 

In one respect, only, we think, can the warmest 
admirers of Charles venture to say that he was a 
better sovereign than his son.^ He was not, in name 
1 James II. 



Essay on Milton 93 

and profession, a Papist ; we say in name and profes- 
sion, because both Charles himself and his creature 
Laud, while they abjured the innocent badges of popery, 
retained all its worst vices, a complete subjection of 
reason to authority, a weak preference of form to sub- 5 
stance, a childish passion for mummeries, an idolatrous 
veneration for the priestly character, and, above all, a 
merciless intolerance. This, however, we waive. We 
will concede that Charles was a good Protestant ; but we 
say that his Protestantism does not make the shghtestio 
distinction between his case and that of James. 

The principles of the Revolution have often been 
grossly misrepresented, and never more than in the 
course of the present year. There is a certain class of 
men, who, while they profess to hold in reverence the 15 
great names and great actions of former times, never 
look at them for any other purpose than in order to 
find in them some excuse for existing abuses. In every 
venerable precedent they pass by what is essential, and 
take only what is accidental : they keep out of sight 20 
what is beneficial, and hold up to public imitation all 
that is defective. If, in any part of any great example, 
there be any thing unsound, these flesh-flies detect it 
with an unerring instinct, and dart upon it with a rave- 
nous delight. If some good end has been attained in 25 
spite of them, they feel, with their prototype,^ that 

" Their labour must be to pervert that end, 
And out of good still to find means of evil." 
1 Satan, in Paradise Lost. 



94 Essay on Milton 

To the blessings which England has derived from the 
Revolution these people are utterly insensible. The ex- 
pulsion of a tyrant, the solemn recognition of popular 
rights, liberty, security, toleration, all go for nothing with 

5 them. One sect ^ there was, which, from unfortunate 
temporary causes, it was thought necessary to keep under 
close restraint. One part- of the empire there was so 
unhappily circumstanced, that at that time its misery was 
necessary to our happiness, and its slavery to our freedom. 

10 These are the parts of the Revolution which the politi- 
cians of whom we speak love to contemplate, and which 
seem to them not indeed to vindicate, but in some de- 
gree to palliate, the good which it has produced. Talk 
to them of Naples, of Spain, or of South America. They 

15 stand forth zealots for the doctrine of Divine Right which 
has now come back to us, like a thief from transportation, 
under the alias of Legitimacy. But mention the miseries 
of Ireland. Then William is a hero. Then Somers and 
Shrewsbury are great men. Then the Revolution is a 

20 glorious era. The very same persons who, in this country, 
never omit an opportunity of reviving every wretched 
Jacobite slander respecting the Whigs of that period, 
have no sooner crossed St. George's Channel, than they 
begin to fill their bumpers to the glorious and immortal 

25 memory.^ They may truly boast that they look not at 

men, but at measures. So that evil be done, they care 

not who does it ; the arbitrary Charles, or the liberal 

WilHam, Ferdinand the Catholic, or Frederic the Prot- 

1 The Roman Catholics. 2 Ireland. 3 Qf William. 



Essay on Milton 95 

^•?stant. On such occasions their deadUest opponents may 
reckon upon their candid construction. The bold asser- 
tions of these people have of late impressed a large 
portion of the public with an opinion that James the 
Second was expelled simply because he was a Catholic, 5 
and that the Revolution was essentially a Protestant 
Revolution. 

But this certainly was not the case ; nor can any per- 
son who has acquired more knowledge of the history of 
those times than is to be found in Goldsmith's Abridg- 10 
ment believe that, if James had held his own religious 
opinions without wishing to make proselytes, or if, wishing 
even to make proselytes, he had contented himself with 
exerting only his constitutional influence for that purpose, 
the Prince of Orange would ever have been invited over. 15 
Our ancestors, we suppose, knew their own meaning ; 
and, if we may believe them, their hostility was primarily 
not to popery, but to tyranny. They did not drive out 
a tyrant because he was a CathoUc ; but they excluded 
Catholics from the crown, because they thought them 20 
likely to be tyrants. The ground on which they, in 
their famous resolution, declared the throne vacant, was 
this, " that James had broken the fundamental laws of 
the kingdom.." Every man, therefore, who approves 
of the Revolution of 1688 must hold that the breach of 25 
fundamental laws on the part of the sovereign justifies 
resistance. The question, then, is this : Had Charles 
the First broken the fundamental laws of England? 

No person can answer in the negative, unless he refuses 



96 Essay on Milton 

credit, not merely to all the accusations brought against 
Charles by his opponents, but to the narratives of the 
warmest -Royalists, and to the confessions of the King 
himself. If there be any truth in any historian of any 
5 party who has related the events of that reign, the con- 
duct of Charles, from his accession to the meeting of the 
Long Parliament, had been a continued course of oppres- 
sion and treachery. Let those who applaud the Revolu- 
tion, and condemn the Rebellion, mention one act of 

10 James the Second to which a parallel is not to be found 
in the history of his father. Let them lay their fingers 
on a single article in the Declaration of Right, presented 
by the two Houses to William and Mary, which Charles 
is not acknowledged to have violated. He had, accord- 

15 ing to the testimony of his own friends, usurped the 
functions of the legislature, raised taxes without the con- 
sent of parliament, and quartered troops on the people 
in the most illegal and vexatious manner. Not a single 
session of parliament had passed without some unconsti- 

20 tutional attack on the freedom of debate ; the right of 
petition was grossly violated ; arbitrary judgments, ex- 
orbitant fines, and unwarranted imprisonments, were 
grievances of daily occurrence. If these things do not 
justify resistance, the Revolution was treason ; if they do, 

25 the Great Rebellion was laudable. 

But, it is said, why not adopt milder measures? Why, 
after the King had consented to so many reforms, and 
renounced so many oppressive prerogatives, did the 
parliament continue to rise in their demands at the risk 



Essay on Milton 97 

of provoking a civil war? The ship-money had been 
given up/ The Star Chamber had been aboHshed. Pro- 
vision had been made for the frequent convocption and 
secure deliberation of parhaments. Why not pursue an 
end confessedly good by peaceable and regular means? 5 
We recur again to the analogy of the Revolution. Why 
was James driven from the throne? Why was he not 
retained upon conditions? He too had offered to call 
a free parHament and to submit to its decision all the 
matters in dispute. Yet we are in the habit of praising 10 
our forefathers, who preferred a revolution, a disputed 
succession, a dynasty of strangers, twenty years of foreign 
and intestine war, a standing army, and a national debt, 
to the rule, however restricted, of a tried and proved 
tyrant. The Long Parliament acted on the same prin- 15 
ciple, and is entitled to the same praise. They could 
not trust the King. He had no doubt passed salutary 
laws ; but what assurance was there that he would not 
break them ? He had renounced oppressive prerogatives ; 
but where was the security that he would not resume 20 
them? The nation had to deal with a man whom no tie 
could bind, a man who made and broke promises with 
equal facility, a man whose honour had been a hundred 
times pawned, and never redeemed. 

Here, indeed, the Long Parliament stands on still 25 
stronger ground than the Convention of 1688. No 
action of James can be compared to the conduct of 
Charles v/ith respect to the Petition of Right. The Lords 
and Commons present him with a bill in which the con- 

MAC.'S ESS. ON MILTON — 7 



98 Essay on Milton 

stitutional limits of his power are marked out. He 
hesitates ; he evades ; at last he bargains to give his 
assent for five subsidies. The bill receives his solemn 
assent ; the subsidies are voted ; but no sooner is the 

5 tyrant relieved, than he returns at once to all the arbi- 
trary measures which he had bound himself to abandon, 
and violates all the clauses of the very Act which he had 
been paid to pass. 

For more than ten years the people had seen the rights 

10 which were theirs by a double claim, by immemorial 
inheritance and by recent purchase, infringed by the per- 
fidious king who had recognised them. At length cir- 
cumstances compelled Charles to summon another 
parhament : another chance was given to our fathers : 

15 were they to throw it away as they had thrown away the 
former? Were they again to be cozened by le Roi le 
veut? Were they again to advance their money on 
pledges which had been forfeited over and over again ? 
Were they to lay a second Petition of Right at the foot 

20 of the throne, to grant another lavish aid in exchange 
for another unmeaning ceremony, and then to take their 
departure, till, after ten years more of fraud and oppres- 
sion, their prince should again require a supply, and again 
repay it with perjury? They were compelled to choose 

25 whether they would trust a tyrant or conquer him. We 
think that they chose wisely and nobly. 

The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of other 
malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is pro- 
duced, generally decline all controversy about the facts, 



Essay on Milton 99 

and content themselves with calHng testimony to char- 
acter. He had so many private virtues ! And had 
James the Second no private virtues ? Was OHver Crom- 
well, his bitterest enemies themselves being judges, desti- 
tute of private virtues ? And what, after all, are the virtues 5 
ascribed to Charles ? A religious zeal, not more sincere 
than that of his son, and fully as weak and narrow-minded, 
and a few of the ordinary household decencies which half 
the tombstones in England claim for those who He be- 
neath them. A good father ! A good husband ! Ample 10 
apologies indeed for fifteen years of persecution, tyranny, 
and falsehood ! 

We charge him with having broken his coronation 
oath ; and we are told that he kept his marriage vow ! 
We accuse him of having given up his people to the 15 
merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard- 
hearted of prelates,^ and the defence is, that he took his 
little son on his knee and kissed him ! We censure him 
for having violated the articles of the Petition of Right, 
after having, for good and valuable consideration, prom- 20 
ised to observe them ; and we are informed that he was 
accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in the morning ! 
It is to such considerations as these, together with his 
Vandyke dress, his handsome face, and his peaked beard, 
that he owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity 25 
with the present generation. 

For ourselves, we own that we do not understand the 
common phrase, a good man, but a bad king. We can 
L. of C. 1 Archbishop Laud. 



loo Essay on Milton 

as easily conceive a good man and an unnatural father, or 
a good man and a treacherous friend. We cannot, in 
estimating the character of an individual, leave out of 
our consideration his conduct in the most important 

5 of all human relations ; and if in that relation we find 
him to have been selfish, cruel, and deceitful, we shall 
take the liberty to call him a bad man, in spite of 
all his temperance at table, and all his regularity at 
chapel. 

10 We cannot refrain from adding a few words respecting 
a topic on which the defenders of Charles are fond of 
dwelling. If, they say, he governed his people ill, he at 
least governed them after the example of his predecessors. 
If he violated their privileges, it was because those privi- 

15 leges had not been accurately defined. No act of oppres- 

. sion has ever been imputed to him which has not a 
parallel in the annals of the Tudors. This point Hume 
has laboured, with an art which is as discreditable in a 
historical work as it would be admirable in a forensic 

20 address. The answer is short, clear, and decisive. 
Charles had assented to the Petition of Right. He had 
renounced the oppressive powers said to have been exer- 
cised by his predecessors, and he had renounced them 
for money. He was not entitled to set up his antiquated 

25 claims against his own recent release. 

These arguments are so obvious, that it may seem super- 
fluous to dwell upon them. But those who have observed 
how much the events of that time are misrepresented 
and misunderstood, will not blame us for stating the case 



Essay on Milton loi 

simply. It is a case of which the simplest statement is 
the strongest. 

The enemies of the Parliament, indeed, rarely choose 
to take issue on the great points of the question. They 
content themselves with exposing some of the crimes and 5 
follies to which public commotions necessarily give birth. 
They bewail the unmerited fate of Strafford. They exe- 
crate the lawless violence of the army. They laugh at 
the Scriptural names of the preachers. Major-generals 
fleecing their districts ; soldiers revelling on the spoils 10 
of a ruined peasantry ; upstarts, enriched by the public 
plunder, taking possession of the hospitable firesides and 
hereditary trees of the old gentry ; boys smashing the 
beautiful windows of cathedrals ; Quakers riding naked 
through the market-place ; Fifth- monarchy-men shouting 15 
for King Jesus ; agitators lecturing from the tops of tubs 
on the fate of Agag ; all these, they tell us, were the off- 
spring of the Great Rebellion. 

Be it so. We are not careful to answer in this matter. 
These charges, were they infinitely more important, 20 
would not alter our opinion of an event which alone has 
made us to differ from the slaves who crouch beneath 
despotic sceptres. Many evils, no doubt, were produced 
by the civil war. They were the price of our liberty. 
Has the acquisition been worth the sacrifice? It is the 25 
nature of the Devil of tyranny to tear and rend the 
body which he leaves. Are the miseries of continued 
possession less horrible than the struggles of the tre- 
mendous exorcism? 



/ 



102 Essay on Milton 

If it were possible that a people brought up under an 
intolerant and arbitrary system could subvert that system 
without acts of cruelty and folly, half the objections to 
despotic power would be removed. We should, in that 
5 case, be compelled to acknowledge that it at least pro- 
duces no pernicious effects on the intellectual and moral 
character of a nation. We deplore the outrages which 
accompany revolutions. But the more violent the out- 
rages, the more assured we feel that a revolution was 

10 necessary. The violence of those outrages will always 
be proportioned to the ferocity and ignorance of the 
people ; and the ferocity and ignorance of the people 
will be proportioned to the oppression and degradation 
under which they have been accustomed to Hve. Thus 

15 it was in our civil war. The heads of the church and 
state reaped only that which they had sown. The gov- 
ernment had prohibited free discussion ; it had done its 
best to keep the people unacquainted with their duties 
and their rights. The retribution was just and natural. 

20 If our rulers suffered from popular ignorance, it was be- 
cause they had themselves taken away the key of know- 
ledge. If they were assailed with bhnd fury, it was 
because they had exacted an equally blind submission. 
It is the character of such revolutions that we always 

25 see the worst of them at first. Till men have been some 
time free, they know not how to use their freedom. The 
natives of wine countries are generally sober. In climates 
where wine is a rarity intemperance abounds. A newly 
liberated people may be compared to a northern army 



Essay on Milton 103 

encamped on the Rhine or the Xeres. It is said that, 
when soldiers in such a situation first find themselves able 
to indulge without restraint in such a rare and expensive 
luxury, nothing is to be seen but intoxication. Soon, 
however, plenty teaches discretion ; and, after wine has 5 
been for a few months their daily fare, they become more 
temperate than they had ever been in their own country. 
In the same manner, the final and permanent fruits of 
liberty are wisdom, moderation, and mercy. Its imme- 
diate effects are often atrocious crimes, conflicting errors, 10 
scepticism on points the most clear, dogmatism on points 
the most mysterious. It is just at this crisis that its 
enemies love to exhibit it. They pull down the scaffold- 
ing from the half-finished edifice : they point to the flying 
dust, the falHng bricks, the comfortless rooms, the fright- 15 
ful irregularity of the whole appearance ; and then ask in 
scorn where the promised splendour and comfort is to be 
found. If such miserable sophisms were to prevail there 
would never be a good house or a good government in 
the world. 20 

Ariosto tells a pretty story of a fairy, who, by some 
mysterious law of her nature, was condemned to appear 
at certain seasons in the form of a foul and poisonous 
snake. Those who injured her during the period of 
her disguise were for ever excluded from participa-25 
tion in the blessings which she bestowed. But to 
those who, in spite of her loathsome aspect, pitied and 
protected her, she afterwards revealed herself in the 
beautiful and celestial form which was natural to her, 



I04 Essay on Milton 

accompanied their steps, granted all their wishes, filled 
their houses with wealth, made them happy in love and 
victorious in war. Such a spirit is Liberty. At times 
she takes the form of a hateful reptile. She grovels, she 
5 hisses, she stings. But woe to those who in disgust 
shall venture to crush her ! And happy are those who, 
having dared to receive her in her degraded and fright- 
ful shape, shall at length be rewarded by her in the time 
of her beauty and her glory ! 

lo There is only one cure for the evils which newly 
acquired freedom produces ; and that cure is freedom. 
When a prisoner first leaves his cell he cannot bear the 
light of day : he is unable to discriminate colours, or 
recognise faces. But the remedy is, not to remand him 

15 into his dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays of the 
sun. The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle 
and bewilder nations which have become half blind in 
the house of bondage. But let them gaze on, and they 
will soon be able to bear it. In a few years men learn 

20 to reason. The extreme violence of opinion subsides. 
Hostile theories correct each other. The scattered 
elements of truth cease to contend, and begin to 
coalesce. And at length a system of justice and order 
is educed out of the chaos. 

25 Many politicians of our time are in the habit of lay- 
ing it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people 
ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. 
The maxim is worthy "of the fool in the old story, who 
resolved not to go into the water till he had learnt to 



Essay on Milton 105 

swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become 
wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait for ever. 
Therefore it is that we decidedly approve of the 
conduct of Milton and the other wise and good men who, 
in spite of much that was ridiculous and hateful in the 5 
conduct of their associates, stood firmly by the cause of 
Public Liberty. We are not aware that the poet has 
been charged with personal participation in any of the 
blamable excesses of that time. The favourite topic of 
his enemies is the Une of conduct which he pursued 10 
with regard to the execution of the King. Of that 
celebrated proceeding we by no means approve. Still 
we must say, injustice to the many eminent persons who 
concurred in it, and in justice more particularly to the 
eminent person who defended it, that nothing can be 15 
more absurd than the imputations which, for the last 
hundred and sixty years, it has been the fashion to cast 
upon the Regicides. We have, throughout, abstained from 
appealing to first principles. We will not appeal to them 
now. We recur again to the parallel case of the Revolu- 20 
tion. What essential distinction can be drawn between 
the execution of the father and the deposition of the son ? 
What constitutional maxim is there which applies to the 
former and not to the latter ? The King can do no wrong. 
If so, James was as innocent as Charles could have been. 25 
The minister only ought to be responsible for the acts of 
the Sovereign. If so, why not impeach Jefferies and retain 
James? The person of a King is sacred. Was the 
person of James considered sacred at the Boyne? To 



io6 Essay on Milton 

discharge cannon against an army in which a King is 
known to be posted is to approach pretty near to 
regicide. Charles, too, it should always be remembered, 
was put to death by men who had been exasperated by 
5 the hostilities of several years, and who had never been 
bound to him by any other tie than that which was 
common to them with all their fellow-citizens. Those 
who drove James from his throne, who seduced his army, 
who alienated his friends, who first imprisoned him in 

lo his palace, and then turned him out of it, who broke in 
upon his very slumbers by imperious messages, who 
pursued him with fire and sword from one part of the 
empire to another, who hanged, drew, and quartered his 
adherents, and attainted his innocent heir, were his 

15 nephew and his two daughters. When we reflect on all 
these things, we are at a loss to conceive how the same 
persons who, on the fifth of November, ^ thank God for 
wonderfully conducting his servant William, and for mak- 
ing all opposition fall before him until he became our 

20 King and Governor, can, on the thirtieth of January, ^ 
contrive to be afraid that the blood of the Royal Martyr 
may be visited on themselves and their children. 

We disapprove, we repeat, of the execution of Charles ; 
not because the constitution exempts the King from re- 

25 sponsibility, for we know that all such maxims, however 
excellent, have their exceptions ; not because we feel 
any pecuHar interest in his character, for we think that 

1 The anniversary of William's landing in England. 

2 The anniversary of the execution of Charles I. 



Essay on Milton 107 

his sentence describes him with perfect justice as "a 
tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy " ; but 
because we are convinced that the measure was most 
injurious to the cause of freedom. He whom it removed 
was a captive and a hostage : his heir,^ to whom the 5 
allegiance of every Royalist was instantly transferred, was 
at large. The Presbyterians could never have been per- 
fectly reconciled to the father : they had no such rooted 
enmity to the son. The great body of the people, also, 
contemplated that proceeding with feelings which, how- 10 
ever unreasonable, no government could safely venture to 
outrage. 

But though we think the conduct of the Regicides 
blamable, that of Tvlilton appears to us in a very differ- 
ent light. The deed was done. It could not be undone. 15 
The evil was incurred ; and the object was to render it 
as small as possible. We censure the chiefs of the army 
for not yielding to the popular opinion ; but we cannot 
censure Milton for wishing to change that opinion. The 
very feeling which would have restrained us from commit- 20 
ting the act would have led us, after it had been com- 
mitted, to defend it against the ravings of servility and 
superstition. For the sake of public liberty, we wish 
that the thing had not been done, while the people dis- 
approved of it. But, for the sake of public hberty, we 25 
should also have wished the people to approve of it 
when it was done. If any thing more were wanting to 
the justification of Milton, the book of Salmasius would 
1 Charles II. 



io8 Essay on Milton 

furnish it. That miserable performance is now with jus- 
tice considered only as a beacon to word-catchers, who 
wish to become statesmen. The celebrity of the man 
who refuted it, the "^Enese magni dextra," gives it all its 
5 fame with the present generation. In that age the state 
of things was different. It was not then fully understood 
how vast an interval separates the mere classical scholar 
from the pohtical philosopher. Nor can it be doubted 
that a treatise which, bearing the name of so eminent 

10 a critic, attacked the fundamental principles of all free 
governments, must, if suffered to remain unanswered, have 
produced a most pernicious effect on the public mind. 

We wish to add a few words relative to another subject, 
on which the enemies of Milton delight to dwell, his con- 

15 duct during the administration of the Protector. That an 
enthusiastic votary of liberty should accept office under a 
military usurper seems, no doubt, at first sight, extraordi- 
nary. But all the circumstances in which the country 
was then placed were extraordinary. The ambition of 

20 Oliver was of no vulgar kind. He never seems to have 
coveted despotic power. He at first fought sincerely 
and manfully for the Parliament, and never deserted it, 
till it had deserted its duty. If he dissolved it by force, 
it was not till he found that the few members who re- 

25 mained after so many deaths, secessions, and expulsions, 

were desirous to appropriate to themselves a power which 

they held only in trust, and to inflict upon England the 

curse of a Venetian oligarchy.^ But even when thus 

1 A typical aristocracy. 



Essay on Milton 109 

placed by violence at the head of affairs, he did not 
assume unHmited power. He gave the country a consti- 
tution far more perfect than any which had at that time 
been known in the world. He reformed the representa- 
tive system in a manner which has extorted praise even 5 
from Lord Clarendon. For himself he demanded indeed 
the first place in the commonwealth ; but with powers 
scarcely so great as those of a Dutch stadtholder, or an 
American president. He gave the Parliament a voice in 
the appointment of ministers, and left to it the whole 10 
legislative authority, not even reserving to himself a veto 
on its enactments ; and he did not require that the chief 
magistracy should be hereditary in his family. Thus far, 
we think, if the circumstances of the time and the oppor- 
tunities which he had of aggrandising himself be fairly 15 
considered, he will not lose by comparison with Wash- 
ington or Bohvar. Had his moderation been met by 
corresponding moderation, there is no reason to think 
that he would have overstepped the line which he had " 
traced for himself. But when he found that his parha- 20 
ments questioned the authority under which they met, 
and that he was in danger of being deprived of the 
restricted power which was absolutely necessary to his 
personal safety, then, it must be acknowledged, he 
adopted a more arbitrary policy. 25 

Yet, though we beheve that the intentions of Crom- 
well were at first honest, though we beheve that he was 
driven from the noble course which he had marked out 
for himself by the almost irresistible force of circum- 



no Essay on Milton 

stances, though we admire, in common with all men of 
all parties, the ability and energy of his splendid adminis- 
tration, we are not pleading for arbitrary and lawless 
power, even in his hands. We know that a good con- 

5 stitution is infinitely better than the best despot. But 
we suspect, that at the time of which we speak, the vio- 
lence of rehgious and political enmities rendered a stable 
and happy settlement next to impossible. The choice 
lay, not between Cromwell and liberty, but between 

10 Cromwell and the Stuarts. That Milton chose well, no 
man can doubt who fairly compares the events of the 
protectorate with those of the thirty years which suc- 
ceeded it, the darkest and most disgraceful in the EngHsh 
annals. Cromwell was evidently laying, though in an 

15 irregular manner, the foundations of an admirable system. 
Never before had religious liberty and the freedom of 
discussion been enjoyed in a greater degree. Never had 
the national honour been better upheld abroad, or the 
seat of justice better filled at home. And it was rarely 

20 that any opposition which stopped short of open rebel- 
lion provoked the resentment of the liberal and magnani- 
mous usurper. The institutions which he had estabhshed, 
as set down in the Instrument of Government, and the 
Humble Petition and Advice, were excellent. His prac- 

25 tice, it is true, too often departed from the theory of 
these institutions. But, had he lived a few years longer, 
it is probable that his institutions would have survived 
him, and that his arbitrary practice would have died 
with him. His power had not been consecrated by 



Essay on Milton 1 1 1 

ancient prejudices. It was upheld only by his great 
personal qualities. Little, therefore, was to be dreaded 
from a second protector, unless he were also a second 
Oliver Cromwell. The events which followed his de- 
cease are the most complete vindication of those who 5 
exerted themselves to uphold his authority. His death 
dissolved the whole frame of society. The army rose 
against the parliament, the different corps of the army 
against each other. Sect raved against sect. Party plot- 
ted against party. The Presbyterians, in their eagerness 10 
to be revenged on the Independents, sacrificed their own 
Hberty, and deserted all their old principles. Without 
casting one glance on the past, or requiring one stipula- 
tion for the future, they threw down their freedom at the . 
feet of the most frivolous and heartless of tyrants.^ 15 

Then came those days, never to be recalled without a 
blush, the days of servitude without loyalty and sensuality 
without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices, the 
paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age 
of the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The King cringed 20 
to his rival- that he might trample on his people, sank 
into a viceroy of France, and pocketed, with complacent 
infamy, her degrading insults, and her more degrading gold. 
The caresses of harlots, and the jests of buffoons, regu- 
lated the policy of the state. The government had just 25 
abihty enough to deceive, and just rehgion enough to 
persecute. The principles of Uberty were the scoff of 
every grinning courtier, and the Anathema Maranatha of 
1 Charles II. 2 Louis XIV. 



112 Essay on Milton 

every fawning dean. In every high place, worship was 
paid to Charles and James, Belial and Moloch ; and Eng- 
land propitiated those obscene and cruel idols with the 
blood of her best and bravest children. Crime succeeded 
5 to crime, and disgrace to disgrace, till the race ^ accursed 
of God and man was a second time driven forth, to wan- 
der on the face of the earth, and to be a by-word and a 
shaking of the head to the nations. 

Most of the remarks which we have hitherto made on 

10 the public character of Milton, apply to him only as one 
of a large body. We shall proceed to notice some of the 
peculiarities which distinguished him from his contempo- 
raries. And, for that purpose, it is necessary to take a short 
survey of the parties into which the political world was 

15 at that time divided. VVe must premise, that our obser- 
vations are intended to apply only to those who adhered, 
from a sincere preference, to one or to the other side. 
In days of public commotion, every faction, like an Ori- 
ental army, is attended by a crowd of camp-followers, an 

20 useless and heartless rabble, who prowl round its line of 
march in the hope of picking up something under its pro- 
tection, but desert it in the day of battle, and often join 
to exterminate it after a defeat. England, at the time of 
which we are treating, abounded with fickle and selfish 

25 politicians, who transferred their support to every govern- 
ment as it rose, who kissed the hand of the King in 1640,^ 
and spat in his face in 1649,^ ^^^o shouted with equal glee 

1 The Stuarts. ^ When the Long Parliament began. 

^ When Charles was executed. 



Essay on Milton 113 

when Cromwell was inaugurated in Westminster Hall, and 
when he was dug up to be hanged at Tyburn, who dined 
on calves' heads, or stuck up oak-branches, as circum- 
stances altered, without the slightest shame or repug- 
nance. These we leave out of the account. We take 5 
our estimate of parties from those who really deserve to 
be called partisans. 

We would speak first of the Puritans, the most remark- 
able body of men, perhaps, which the world has ever pro-^'" 
duced. The odious and ridiculous parts of their character 10 
lie on the surface. He that runs may read them ; nor 
have there been wanting attentive and malicious observers 
to point them out. For many years after the Restoration, 
they were the theme of unmeasured invective and deri- 
sion. They were exposed to the utmost licentiousness of 15 
the press and of the stage, at the time when the press 
and the stage were most licentious. They were not men 
of letters ; they were, as a body, unpopular ; they could 
not defend themselves ; and the public would not take 
them under its protection. They were therefore aban- 20 
doned, without reserve, to the tender mercies of the satir- 
ists and dramatists. The ostentatious simplicity of their 
dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff pos- 
ture, their long graces, their Hebrew names, the Scrip- 
tural phrases which they introduced on every occasion, 25 
their contempt of human learning, their detestation of 
polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the laugh- 
ers. But it is not from the laughers alone that the phi- 
losophy of history is to be learnt. And he who approaches 

mac's ess. on MILTON — 8 



114 Essay on Milton 

this subject should carefully guard against the influence 
of that potent ridicule which has already misled so many 
excellent writers. 

" Ecco il fonte del riso, ed ecco il rio 
5 Che mortali perigli in se contiene : 

Hor qui tener a fren nostro desio, 
Ed esser cauti molto a noi conviene." 

Those who roused the people to resistance, who directed 
their measures through a long series of eventful years, who 

10 formed, out of the most unpromising materials, the finest 
army that Europe had ever seen, who trampled down 
King, Church, and Aristocracy, who, in the short intervals 
of domestic sedition and rebellion, made the name of 
England terrible to every nation on the face of the earth, 

15 were no vulgar fanatics. Most of their absurdities were 
mere external badges, like the signs of freemasonry, or 
the dresses of friars. We regret that these badges were 
not more attractive. We regret that a body to whose 
courage and talents mankind has owed inestimable obli- 

20 gations had not the lofty elegance which -distinguished 
some of the adherents of Charles the First, or the easy 
good-breeding for which the court of Charles the Second 
was celebrated. But, if we must make our choice, we 
shall, hke Bassanio in the play,^ turn from the specious 

25 caskets which contain only the Death's head and the 
Fool's head, and fix on the plain leaden chest which con- 
ceals the treasure. 

^ The Merchant of Venice. 



Essay on Milton 115 

The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a 
pecuhar character from the daily contemplation of supe- 
rior beings and eternal interests. Not content with ^ 
acknowledging, in general terms, an overruling Provi- 
dence, they habitually ascribed every event to the will 5 
of the Great Being, for whose power nothing was too 
vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To 
know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them the 
great end of existence. They rejected with contempt 
the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for 10 
the pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occa- 
sional ghmpses of the Deity through an obscuring veil, 
they aspired to gaze full on his intolerable brightness, 
and to commune with him face to face. Hence origi- 
nated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The 15 
difference between the greatest and the meanest of 
mankind seemed to vanish, when compared with the 
boundless interval which separated the whole race from 
him on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed. ■ 
They recognised no title to superiority but his favour; 20 
and, confident of that favour, they despised all the 
accomplishments and all the dignities of the world. If 
they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers 
and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. 
If their names were not found in the registers of heralds,, 25 
they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps 
were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, 
legions of ministering angels had charge over them. 
Their palaces were houses not made with hands ; their 



ii6 Essay on Milton 

diadems crowns of glory which should never fade away. 
On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, 
they looked down with contempt : for they esteemed 
themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and elo- 
squent in a more sublime language, nobles by the right 
of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of 
a mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a 
being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible impor- 
tance belonged, on whose slightest action the spirits of 

10 light and darkness looked with anxious interest, who had 
been destined, before heaven and earth were created, to 
enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven and 
earth should have passed away. Events which short- 
sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been 

15 ordained on his account. For his sake empires had 
arisen, and flourished, and decayed. For his sake the 
Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the 
Evangelist, and the harp of the prophet. He had been 
wrested by no common deliverer from the grasp of no 

20 common foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of 
no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. 
It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that 
the rocks had been rent, that the dead had risen, that 
all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring 

25 God. 

Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men, 
the one all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion, 
the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He pros- 
trated himself in the dust before his Maker : but he set 



Essay on Milton 117 

his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional 
retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and 
tears. He was half-maddened by glorious or terrible - 
illusions. He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting 
whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific 5 
Vision,^ or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting ' 
fire. Like Vane, he thought himself intrusted with the 
sceptre of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he cried 
in the bitterness of his soul that God had hid his face 
from him. But when he took his seat in the council, 10 
or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings 
of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. 
People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth 
visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans 
and their whining hymns, might laugh at them. But 15 
those had little reason to laugh who encountered them 
in the hall of debate or in the field of batde. These 
fanatics brought to civil and military affairs a coolness 
of judgment and an immutability of purpose which some 
writers have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, 20 
but which were in fact the necessary effects of it. The 
intensity of their feelings on one subject made them 
tranquil on every other. One overpowering sentiment 
had subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition and 
fear. Death had lost its terrors and pleasure its charms. 25 
They had their smiles and their tears, their raptures and 
their sorrows, but not for the things of this world. En- 
thusiasm had made them Stoics, had cleared their minds 
1 Of God and Heaven. 



ii8 Essay on Milton 

from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised them 
above the influence of danger and of corruption. It 
sometimes might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but 
never to choose unwise means. They went through the 

5 world, Hke Sir Artegal's iron man Talus with his flail, 
crushing and trampling down oppressors, mingling with 
human beings, but having neither part nor lot in human 
infirmities, insensible to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain, 
not to be pierced by any weapon, not to be withstood 

10 by any barrier. 

Such we beUeve to have been the character of the 
Puritans. We perceive the absurdity of their manners. 
We dislike the sullen gloom of their domestic habits. 
We acknowledge that the tone of their minds was often 

15 injured by straining after things too high for mortal 
reach : and we know that, in spite of their hatred of 
popery, they too often fell into the worst vices of that 
bad system, intolerance and extravagant austerity, that 
they had their anchorites, and their crusades, their 

2oDunstans and their De Montforts, their Dominies and 
their Escobars. Yet, when all circumstances are taken 
into consideration, we do not hesitate to pronounce them 
a brave, a wise, an honest, and an useful body. 

The Puritans espoused the cause of civil liberty mainly 

25 because it was the cause of religion. There was another 
party, by no means numerous, but distinguished by learn- 
ing and ability, which acted with them on very different 
principles. We speak of those whom Cromwell was 
accustomed to call the Heathens, men who were, in the 



Essay on Milton 119 

phraseology of that time, doubting Thomases or careless 
GalUos with regard to rehgious subjects, but passionate 
worshippers of freedom. Heated by the study of ancient 
literature, they set up their country as their idol, and 
proposed to themselves the heroes of Plutarch as their 5 
examples. They seem to have borne some resemblance 
to the Brissotines of the French Revolution. But it is 
not very easy to draw the Hne of distinction between 
them and their devout associates, whose tone and manner 
they sometimes found it convenient to affect, and some- 10 
times, it is probable, imperceptibly adopted. 

We now come to the Royalists. We shall attempt to 
speak of them, as we have spoken of their antagonists, 
with perfect candour. We shall not charge upon a 
whole party the profligacy and baseness of the horseboys, 15 
gamblers and bravoes, whom the hope of hcense and 
plunder attracted from all the dens of Whitefriars to the 
standard of Charles, and who disgraced their associates 
by excesses which, under the stricter discipline of the 
Parliamentary armies, were never tolerated. We will se- 20 
lect a more favourable specimen. Thinking as we do 
that the cause of the King was the cause of bigotry and 
tyranny, we yet cannot refrain from looking with com- 
placency on the character of the honest old Cavaliers. We 
feel a national pride in comparing them with the instru- 25 
ments which the despots of other countries are com- 
pelled to employ, with the mutes who throng their 
antechambers, and the Janissaries who mount guard at 
their gates. Our royahst countrymen were not heartless, 



I20 Essay on Milton 

dangling courtiers, bowing at every step, and simpering at 
every word. They were not mere machines for destruc- 
tion dressed up in uniforms, caned into skill, intoxicated 
into valour, defending without love, destroying without 

5 hatred. There was a freedom in their subserviency, a 
nobleness in their very degradation. The sentiment of 
individual independence was strong within them. They 
were indeed misled, but by no base or selfish motive. 
Compassion and romantic honour, the prejudices of child- 

10 hood, and the venerable names of history, threw over 
them a spell potent as that of Duessa ; and, like the Red- 
Cross Knight, they thought that they were doing battle 
for an injured beauty, while they defended a false and 
loathsome sorceress. In truth they scarcely entered at all 

15 into the merits of the political question. It was not for 
a treacherous king or an intolerant church that they 
fought, but for the old banner which had waved in so 
many battles over the heads of their fathers, and for the 
altars at which they had received the hands of their 

20 brides. Though nothing could be more erroneous than 
their political opinions, they possessed, in a far greater 
degree than their adversaries, those qualities which are 
the grace of private life. With many of the vices of the 
Round Table, they had also many of its virtues, courtesy, 

25 generosity, veracity, tenderness, and respect for women. 
They had far more both of profound and of polite learn- 
ing than the Puritans. Their manners were more engag- 
ing, their tempers more amiable, their tastes more elegant, 
and their households more cheerful. 



I 



Essay on Milton 121 

Milton did not strictly belong to any of the classes 
which we have described. He was not a Puritan. He 
was not a freethinker. He was not a Royalist. In his 
character the noblest qualities of every party were com- 
bined in harmonious union. From the ParHament and 5 
from the Court, from the conventicle and from the 
Gothic cloister, from the gloomy and sepulchral circles 
of the Roundheads, and from the Christmas revel of the 
hospitable Cavaher, his nature selected and drew to itself 
whatever was great and good, while it rejected all the 10 
base and pernicious ingredients by which those finer 
elements were defiled. Like the Puritans, he Hved 

" As ever in his great task-master's eye." ' 

Like them, he kept his mind continually fixed on an 
Almighty Judge and an eternal reward. And hence he 15 
acquired their contempt of external circumstances, their 
fortitude, their tranquillity, their inflexible resolution. 
But not the coolest sceptic or the most profane scoffer 
was more perfectly free from the contagion of their frantic 
delusions, their savage manners, their ludicrous jargon, 20 
their scorn of science, and their aversion to pleasure. 
Hating tyranny with a perfect hatred, he had nevertheless 
all the estimable and ornamental qualities which were 
almost entirely monopolised by the party of the tyrant. 
There was none who had a stronger sense of the value of 25 
literature, a finer relish for every elegant amusement, or 
a more chivalrous dehcacy of honour and love. Though 
his opinions were democratic, his tastes and his associa- 



122 Essay on Milton 

tions were such as harmonise best with monarchy and 
aristocracy. He was under the influence of all the feel- 
ings by which the gallant CavaHers were misled. But of 
those feelings he was the master and not the slave. 
5 Like the hero of Homer, he enjoyed all the pleasures of 
fascination ; but he was not fascinated. He listened to 
the song of the Syrens ; yet he ghded by without being 
.seduced to their fatal shore.^ He tasted the cup of 
Circe ; but he bore about him a sure antidote against the 

lo effects of its bewitching sweetness.^ The illusions which 
captivated his imagination never impaired his reasoning 
powers. The statesman was proof against the splendour, 
the solemnity, and the romance which enchanted the 
poet. Any person who will contrast the sentiments 

15 expressed in his treatises on Prelacy with the exquisite 
hnes on ecclesiastical architecture and music in the 
PenserosOj which was published about the same time, 
will understand our meaning. This is an inconsistency 
which, more than anything else, raises his character in our 

20 estimation, because it shows how many private tastes and 
feehngs he sacrificed, in order to do what he considered 
his duty to mankind. It is the very struggle of the noble 
Othello. His heart relents ; but his hand is firm. He 
does nought in hate, but all in honour. He kisses the 

25 beautiful deceiver before he destroys her. 

That from which the public character of Milton derives 
its great and peculiar splendour still remains to be men- 

1 Because he had been securely lashed to the mast. 

2 Because he was equipped with moly, a magic herb. 



Essay on Milton 123 

tioned. If he exerted himself to overthrow a forsworn 
king and a persecuting hierarchy, he exerted himself in 
conjunction with others. But the glory of the battle which 
he fought for the species of freedom which is the most 
valuable, and which was then the least understood, the 5 
freedom of the human mind, is all his own. Thousands 
and tens of thousands among his contemporaries raised 
their voices against Ship-money and the Star Chamber. 
But there were few indeed who discerned the more fear- 
ful evils of moral and intellectual slavery, and the benefits 10 
which would result from the liberty of the press and the 
unfettered exercise of private judgment. These were the 
objects which Milton justly conceived to be the most im- 
portant. He was desirous that the people should think 
for themselves as well as tax themselves, and should be 15 
emancipated from the dominion of prejudice as well as 
from that of Charles. He knew that those who, with the 
best intentions, overlooked these schemes of reform, and 
contented themselves with pulling down the King and 
imprisoning the malignants, acted hke the heedless broth- 20 
ers in his own poem, who, in their eagerness to disperse 
the train of the sorcerer, neglected the means of liberat- 
ing the captive. They thought only of conquering when 
they should have thought of disenchanting. 

" Oh, ye mistook ! Ye should have snatched his wand 25 

And bound him fast. Without the rod reversed, 
And backward mutters of dissevering power, 
We cannot free the lady that sits here 
Bound in strong fetters fixed and motionless." 



124 Essay on Milton 

To reverse the rod, to spell the charm backward, to 
break the ties which bound a stupefied people to the seat 
of enchantment, was the noble aim of Milton. To this 
all his public conduct was directed. For this he joined 
5 the Presbyterians ; for this he forsook them. He fought 
their perilous battle ; but he turned away with disdain 
from their insolent triumph. He saw that they, like those 
whom they had vanquished, were hostile to the Hberty of 
thought. He therefore joined the Independents, and 

10 called upon Cromwell to break the secular chain, and to 
save free conscience from the paw of the Presbyterian 
wolf. With a view to the same great object, he attacked 
the licensing system, in that sublime treatise which every 
statesman should wear as a sign upon his hand and as 

15 frontlets between his eyes. His attacks were, in general, 
directed less against particular abuses than against those 
deeply-seated errors on which almost all abuses are founded, 
the servile worship of eminent men and the irrational dread 
of innovation. 

20 That he might shake the foundations of these debasing 
sentiments more effectually, he always selected for himself 
the boldest literary services. He never came up in the 
rear, when the outworks had been carried and the breach 
entered. He pressed into the forlorn hope. At the be- 

25 ginning of the changes, he wrote with incomparable en- 
ergy and eloquence against the bishops. But, when his 
opinion seemed likely to prevail, he passed on to other 
subjects, and abandoned prelacy to the crowd of writers 
who nov;- hastened to insult a falling party. There is no 



Essay on Milton 125 

more hazardous enterprise than that of bearing the torch 
of truth into those dark and infected recesses in which no 
Hght has ever shone. But it was the choice and the 
pleasure of Milton to penetrate the noisome vapours, and 
to brave the terrible explosion. Those w^ho most dis- 5 
approve of his opinions must respect the hardihood with 
which he maintained them. He, in general, left to others 
the credit of expounding and defending the popular parts 
of his religious and political creed. He took his own 
stand upon those which the great body of his countrymen 10 
reprobated as criminal, or derided as paradoxical. He 
stood up for divorce and regicide. He attacked the pre- 
vaihng systems of education. His radiant and beneficent 
career resembled that of the god of light and fertility.^ 

"Nitor in adversum; nee me, qui csetera, vincit 15 

Impetus, et rapido contrarius evehor orbi." 

It is to be regretted that the prose writings of Milton 
should, in our time, be so little read. As compositions, 
they deserve the attention of every man who wishes to 
become acquainted with the full power of the English 20 
language. They abound with passages compared with 
W'hich the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignifi- 
cance. They are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The 
style is stiff with gorgeous embroidery. Not even in the 
earlier books of the Paf-adise Lost has the great poet ever 25 
risen higher than in those parts of his controversial works 
in which his feelings, excited by conflict, find a vent in 

1 Apollo, the sun-god. 



126 Essay on Milton 

bursts of devotional and lyric rapture. It is, to borrow 
his own majestic language, " a sevenfold chorus of halle- 
lujahs and harping symphonies." 

We had intended to look more closely at these per- 

5 formances, to analyze the peculiarities of the diction, to 
dwell at some length on the sublime wisdom of the Are- 
opagitica and the nervous rhetoric of the Iconoclast, and 
to point out some of those magnificent passages which 
occur in the Treatise Reformation, and the Animad- 

10 versions on the Remonstrant. But the length to which 
our remarks have already extended renders this impos- 
sible. 

We must conclude. And yet we can scarcely tear our- 
selves away from the subject. The days immediately fol- 

15 lowing the publication of this relic of Milton appear to 
be peculiarly set apart, and consecrated to his memory. 
And we shall scarcely be censured if, on this his festival, 
we be found lingering near his shrine, how worthless so- 
ever may be the offering which we bring to it. While 

20 this book lies on our table, we seem to be contemporaries 
of the writer. We are transported a hundred and fifty 
years back. We can almost fancy that we are visiting 
him in his small lodging ; that we see him sitting at the 
old organ beneath the faded green hangings ; that we 

25 can catch the quick twinkle of his eyes, rolHng in vain to 
find the day ; that we are reading in the lines of his noble 
countenance the proud and mournful history of his glory 
and his affliction. We image to ourselves the breathless 
silence in which we should listen to his slightest word, 



Essay on Milton 127 

the passionate veneration with which we should kneel to 
kiss his hand and weep upon it, the earnestness with 
which we should endeavour to console him, if indeed 
such a spirit could need consolation, for the neglect of an 
age unworthy of his talents and his virtues, the eagerness 5 
with which we should contest with his daughters, or with 
his Quaker friend Ellwood, the privilege of reading Homer 
to him, or of taking down the immortal accents which 
flowed from his Hps. 

These are perhaps foolish feelings. Yet we cannot be 10 
ashamed of them ; nor shall we be sorry if what we have 
written shall in any degree excite them in other minds. 
We are not much in the habit of idolising either the liv- 
ing or the dead. And we think that there is no more 
certain indication of a weak and ill-regulated intellect 15 
than that propensity which, for want of a better name, we 
will venture to christen Boswellism. But there are a few 
characters which have stood the closest scrutiny and the 
severest tests, which have been tried in the furnace and 
proved pure, which have been weighed in the balance 20 
and have not been found wanting, which have been de- 
clared sterling by the general consent of mankind, and 
which are visibly stamped with the image and superscrip- 
tion of the Most High. These great men we trust that 
we know how to prize ; and of these was Milton. The 25 
sight of his books, the sound of his name, are pleasant 
to us. His thoughts resemble those celestial fruits and 
flowers which the Virgin Martyr of Massinger sent down 
from the gardens of Paradise to the earth, and which 



128 Essay on Milton 

were distinguished from the productions of other soils, 
not only by superior bloom and sweetness, but by miracu- 
lous efficacy to invigorate and to heal. They are power- 
ful, not only to delight, but to elevate and purify. Nor 

5 do we envy the man who can study either the Hfe or the 
writings of the great poet and patriot, without aspiring to 
emulate, not indeed the sublime works with which his 
genius has enriched our literature, but the zeal with which 
he laboured for the public good, the fortitude with 

10 which he endured every private calamity, the lofty dis- 
dain with which he looked down on temptations and dan- 
gers, the deadly hatred which he bore to bigots and 
tyrants, and the faith which he so sternly kept with his 
country and with his fame. 



i 



NOTES 

The heavy marginal figures stand for page, and the lighter ones for line. 

55 : 6. Secretary. As secretary under Cromwell, it was Mil- 
ton's duty to conduct the foreign diplomatic correspondence in 
Latin, then the international language. 

55 : 12. Wood and Toland. Early biographers of Milton. 

55 : 15. Probable. This conjecture has been found to be incor- 
rect. 

56 : I. Oxford parliament. Summoned in that conservative 
town in the vain hope that it would prove favorable to Charles II 
in 1681. 

56:12. Clearness. Thus does Macaulay in biblical phrase show 
his slight regard for a nice precision in imitating the style of the 
classic authors. 

56 : 25. Ciceronian. Cicero is considered by many the standard 
of excellence in Latin prose. 

56 : 29. Quintilian. A Roman writer on rhetoric in the first 
century a.d, 

57 : 5. Cowley. A royalist poet contemporary with Milton, the 
most popular poet of his day. 

57 : 16. Arianism. That view of the doctrine of the Trinity in 
accordance with which the Son is " the highest of created beings." 

57 : 22. Nature of the Deity. That God must be thought of in 
human form and with human attributes, but without human defects. 

57 : 22. Eternity of matter. ** Matter is imperishable and 
eternal because it is not only from God, but out of God," who is 
eternal. 

mac's ess. on MILTON — 9 1 29 



ijo Notes 



59 * 23. Johnson. Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great literary 
authority in the second half of the eighteenth century. He was 
a personal friend of Goldsmith and Burke. 

60 : 3. Poetry . . . declines. There is somewhat of truth in 
Macaulay's observations about the decline of poetry. He was an 
evolutionist in literature before Darwin. His statement, however, 
needs modification. 

61 : 2. Montague or Walpole. Charles Montague, Earl of 
Halifax, in the reigns of William III and Anne, and Sir Robert 
Walpole, in the reigns of George I and George II, were both care- 
ful students of finance. 

61 : 5. Newton. Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest mathematician 
of his day, specially famous for the formulation of the Law of 
Gravitation. Died in 1727. 

62 : 4. Shaftesbury. A writer on moral philosophy contem- 
porary with Newton. 

62 : 5. Helvetius. A French writer of a slightly later date. 

62 : 16. Mandeville. The author of the Fable of the Bees, 
a Dutch physician residing in London. His peculiar teaching was 
that private luxury, because of its making business for others, is a 
public benefit. 

62 : 26. Poetry. Macaulay seems to imply that metrical form is 
not essential to poetry. What is your opinion? 

63 : 16. Credulity . . . intellect. This is hardly true of mod- 
ern poetry, or the modern appreciation of poetry. 

64 : 16. The Greek Rhapsodists. Professional reciters of 
poetry, especially of the Iliad and the Odyssey. 

64 : 20. Ancient bards of Wales. There has recently sprung 
up a new interest in Welsh bardic literature. Some of the finest 
elements of English literature are to be traced to that source. 

65 : 27. Rabbinical literature. Writings of the Jewish rabbis, 
largely commentaries on the text of the Old Testament. 

56 : 4. Petrarch. An Italian poet of the fourteenth century. 

66 : 7. Cowley. See note on page 57, line 5. 



Notes 131 



66 : 12. Augustan elegance. The age of the Roman em- 
peror Augustus was characterized by the highest excellence in 
literature. 

66 : 22. Epistle to Manso. Manso, the Neapolitan Marquis of 
Villa, was kind to Milton, and was rewarded by a beautiful poem 
in Latin hexameters. 

69 : 5. Arabian tale. In the story of AH Baba and the Forty 
Thieves in the Arabian Nights. 

69 : 8. Dryden. With Milton's permission, Dryden arranged 
parts of Paradise Lost in the form of an opera. After Milton's 
death Dryden was the greatest poet in England. 

71 : 2. Harold. The hero of Childe Harold, the most famous 
of the poems of Byron, a contemporary of Macaulay. 

71 : 15. .ffischylus. First of the trio of supremely great Greek 
tragedians of the fifth century B.C. 

71 : 21. Herodotus. The "father of history," not as critically 
exact as later historians. 

71 : 26. Pindar. A great writer of odes contemporary with 
yEschylus. 

72 : 8. Sophocles . . . Euripides. Arranged in chronological 
order, ^schylus, Sophocles, and Euripides make the trio referred 
to above. 

72 : 21. " Sad Electra's poet." Milton's phrase for Euripides, 
the author of Electra. 

72 : 22. Queen of Fairy-land. Titania in Midsummer Nighfs 
Dream. 

72 : 27. Lyric inspiration. In lyric poetry the author pours 
forth his own impassioned emotions. 

72 : 29. Dramatic proprieties. In dramatic poetry the author 
should put himself into the position of his creation ; he must put 
his own emotions aside, and write consistently with the emotions 
of his characters. 

73 : 18. Faithful Shepherdess . . . Aminta . . . Pastor 
Fido. Masques, in the form of pastoral dramas. 



132 Notes 



74 : 21. Tragical part. That is, the dramatic portion, the 
dialogue. 

74 : 22. Dorique. The Doric dialect of Greek was the form 
used by the pastoral poets of Sicily. 

75 : I. Thjrrsis. The form assumed by the attendant spirit in 
Co7nus. 

75 : 20. Superiority . . . appearance. This statement, like 
the comparison of Comus two pages before, is an illustration of 
Macaulay's power of raising a forceful statement to the second or 
third degree of intensity. 

75 : 28. Divine Comedy. Called a comedy because of its happy 
ending. 

76 : 4. Tuscan. Tuscany is a province of Italy north of Rome 
and including Florence, where Dante lived, 

77 : 23. Maleboge. The eighth circle of hell, in which were 
confined forgers and falsifiers, counterfeiters and liars. 

78 : 27. Amadis. The hero of a famous romance of chivalry, 
called the Amadis of Gaul, popular in the Middle Ages. 

79 : 9. Gulliver. The hero of Swift's Gulliver's Travels. 

80 : 17. Worshipped one invisible Deity. Quite the contrary 
is the fact. Monotheism, in Greece as commonly, follows polytheism. 

80 : 29. Gibbon. The profound historian in the latter part of 
the eighteenth century, who wrote The Decline attd Fall of the 
Roman Empire. 

81 : 12. Synagogue. Representing the Jewish Church and 
nation. 

81 : 12. Academy. The Platonic school of philosophy down 
to the time of Cicero met in the Academy, a pleasure ground near 
Athens. 

81 : 13. Portico. The place where the Stoic philosophers met. 

81 : 13. Lictor. The civil power of Rome. 

81 : 14. Legions. The military power of Rome. 

83 : 28. Don Juan. The hero of Mozart's opera Don Juan, 
who sups with an animated statue, and is carried off to hell by it. 



Notes 



^33 



84 : 5. Auto da fe. A Portuguese phrase for the burning of 
heretics. 

84 : 7. Beatrice. The lady of Dante's love and worship. After 
her death she was idealized by Dante and made to represent his 
highest aspirations. 

85 : 6. Osiris. One of the major gods of Egypt. 

85 : 10. Upstart. Cf. line 30 in // Penseroso : " Whilst yet 
there was no fear of Jove." 

85 : 10. Titans. A group of early deities preceding the reign 
of Zeus. 

85:11. Furies. The avenging deities. 

85 : 12. Prometheus. One of the Titans, who was represented 
as the friend of man. Having stolen fire from heaven, he was 
consequently chained and tortured. 

88 : 23. Hovel. It has been pointed out that this is an obvious 
exaggeration of his misfortune. 

89 : 6. Oriental harem. Another example of Macaulay's exag- 
geration. 

90: 17. Public Conduct. At this point Macaulay passes from 
the consideration of Milton's writings to his public services. 

90 : 21. Oromasdes and Arimanes. Two rival deities of the 
Zoroastrian religion of the ancient Persians. The first was the 
creator of light, life, and good ; the second, of darkness, death, and 
evil. 

90 : 26. Principles. The principles of liberty and self-govern- 
ment whose growth has been traced in the introduction. 

91 : 4. Devoted and eloquent literary champion. As Macau- 
lay was in his day. It was because of his interest in the progress 
of liberty and reform that Macaulay wrote on Milton. 

91 : 13. Roundheads. A contemptuous name for the Puritans 
because their hair was cut short, unlike the flowing locks of the 
Cavaliers. 

92 : 23. Revolution of 1688. By this revolution James II was 
expelled from the English throne. 



134 Notes 



92 : 25. The Great Rebellion. The work of the Long Par- 
liament, which reached its climax in the execution of Charles I. 

93 : 3. Laud. Archbishop of Canterbury, executed by the Long 
Parliament for treason. 

93 : 14. Certain class of men. The Tories of Macaulay's day 
cited the example of William of Orange to support their own 
opposition to Catholic emancipation. 

94 : 14. Naples . . . Spain . . . South America. Countries 
in which the struggle for independence was recent and of current 
interest. 

94 : 15. Divine Right. The doctrine that the king derives his 
right to rule directly from God. 

94 : 18. Somers and Shrewsbury. Trusted advisers of Wil- 
liam. 

94 : 22. Jacobite. A supporter of James (Jacobus) and his 
descendants. 

94 : 23. St. George's Channel. The channel which separates 
England from Ireland. 

94 : 28. Ferdinand . . . Frederic. Ferdinand and Frederic 
were the contemporary monarchs of Spain and Prussia. 

95 : 10. Goldsmith. The author also of The Vicar of Wake- 
field and The Deserted Village, 

96 : 12. Declaration of Right. To be distinguished from the 
Petition of Right presented to Charles I. 

97 : I. Ship-money. A tax levied by Charles on internal towns 
as well as on seaports. 

97 : 2. Star Chamber. So called because of the stars which 
decorated the room in which it met. It was an arbitrary court of 
justice, an instrument of injustice. 

97 : 28. Petition of Right. Distinguish this from the Declara- 
tion of Right presented to William. 

98 : 16. Le Roi le veut. The king wills it : the formula by 
which the king approved a bill passed by Parliament. 

99 : 24. Vandyke. A famous Flemish portrait painter, knighted 



Notes 



^35 



and made court painter by Charles I, whom he painted in " hand- 
some dress with long lace collar and cuffs." 

lOO : 17. Tudors. The Une of English monarchs preceding the 
Stuarts. 

loi : 7. Strafford. The great minister of Charles I, executed 
for treason by the Long Parliament. 

loi : 14. Quakers. The Society of Friends originated at the 
time of the Commonwealth. 

loi : 15. Fifth-monarchy-men. A small religious sect who 
believed that Jesus was to set up an earthly kingdom following the 
four great empires of the prophecy of Daniel, — Assyria, Persia, 
Greece, and Rome. 

loi : 17. Agag. An Amalekite king slain by Samuel, and 
hence a warning to modern tyrants. 

103 : I. Xeres. A town in Spain which gives its name to the 
famous Sherry wines produced near by. 

103 : 21. Ariosto. An Italian poet of the sixteenth century, 
author of Orlando Furioso. 

105 : 18. Regicides. Members of the court that condemned 
Charles I to death. 

105 : 19. First principles. It is characteristic of Macaulay 
not to appeal to first principles, but, like a lawyer, to rely upon 
precedents, or upon parallel cases. 

105 : 27. Jeffries. The wicked chief justice of James II, noted 
for " bloody assizes," by which the participants in Monmouth's 
Rebellion were punished. 

105 : 29. Boyne. The battle of the Boyne River, in northern 
Ireland, in which James II was defeated by William. 

106 : 15. Nephew . . . two daughters. William and Mary, 
and Anne, who succeeded William on the throne. 

107:7. Presbyterians. One of the two strongest sections of the 
Puritans; Cromwell belonged to the other section, the Independents. 

107 : 28. Salmasius. A Dutch professor who wrote a defense 
of Charles I, to which Milton wrote a reply. 



136 Notes 

108 : 4. ^neae. " The right hand of the great ^neas." 

108 : 15. Protector. Cromwell, at the desire of his army, as- 
sumed the title and office of Lord Protector, from 1653 till his 
death in 1658. 

109 : 4. Reformed the representative system. A reform 
which had to be repeated in Macaulay's day. 

109 : 8. Dutch stadtholder. What we would now call the 
president of the Dutch Republic. 

109 : 17. Bolivar. The South American hero, from whom 
Bolivia was named. He was called "the Liberator," from his suc- 
cess in conducting the struggle for independence. 

no : 23. Instrument of Government. A deed, passed in 1653, 
surrendering power into the hands of Cromwell, and defining his 
powers and duties. 

no : 24. Humble Petition and Advice. A bill, passed in 
1657, increasing Cromwell's powers, under which he ruled till his 
death. 

Ill : II. Independents. In this country called Congregation- 
alists ; they recognize no authority in church government except 
that of the local church. 

111 : 28. Anathema Maranatha. A formula of cursing used by 
St. Paul. 

112 : 2. Belial and Moloch. Two fiends in Milton's Paradise 
Lost; Belial " graceful and humane " represents Charles II ; 
Moloch, " the fiercest spirit that fought in Heaven," represents 
James II. 

113 : 3. Calves' heads. In derision of the fate of Charles. 
113 : 3. Oak-branches. A reminder of Charles's hiding in an 

oak after the battle of Worcester. 

113 : 8. Puritans. This description of the Puritans is justly 
famous. 

114 : 3. Excellent Writers. Scott, for example, shows his Tory 
prejudices in his Woodstock. 

114 : 4, Ecco il fonte, etc. From Tz.i&o'^ Jerusalem Delivered. 



Notes 137 



" Here is the fountain of mirth : here is the river which in itself 
contains mortal perils; here now it behooves us to restrain our 
desire, and in our resolve to be strong." 

116: 24. Expiring god. Macaulay's style of writing short, 
balanced, antithetic sentences, is well exemplified above. 

117 : 7. Vane. Sir Henry Vane, at one time governor of Massa- 
chusetts, of extreme religious views, was executed after the restora- 
tion of Charles H on the charge of treason. 

117: 8. Fleetwood. A parliamentary general, and son-in-law 
of Cromwell. 

118: 5. Sir Artegal. In Spenser's Faerie Queene, a Knight 
impersonating Justice. 

118: 20, Dunstans. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury in 
the tenth century, a man of political as well as churchly power. 

118:20. De Montforts. De Montfort was famous for his cruel 
extermination of the Albigenses in southern France. 

118 : 20. Dominies. Dominic was the founder of the order of 
the Dominicans, a champion of orthodoxy and preacher of the 
crusade against the Albigenses. 

118 : 21. Escobars. Escobar was a Spanish Jesuit, the author 
of the Jesuitical doctrine that the end justifies the means. 

119 : 2. Gallios. Gallio, the Roman governor of the province 
of Achaia, of whom it was written, " And Gallio cared for none 
of these things." He has since been a type of the indifferent. 

119: 5. Plutarch. The author of Plutarch's Lives of Greek 
and Roman heroes. 

119 : 7. Brissotines. Or Girondists, a political party during the 
French Revolution, " high-minded but unpractical." 

119: 17. Whitefriars. A district of London, famous as the 
resort of villains and rascals. 

119: 28. Janissaries. A former body of Turkish infantry con- 
stituting the Sultan's guard and standing army. 

120: II. Duessa. False faith, contrasted with Fidessa, true 
faith, in The Faerie Queene. 



138 Notes 



120 : II. Red Cross Knight. One of the heroes of The Faerie 
Queene, deceived by Duessa. 

120: 23. The Round Table. The circle of Knights who sat 
around the Round Table of King Arthur. 

121 : 6, Conventicle. The unadorned and sometimes secret 
place where the Puritans met for worship. 

121 : 7. Cloister. The churches of the Royalists were often of 
Gothic architecture, here contrasted with the conventicle. 

122:15. Prelacy. The government of the church by bishops. 

123: 20. Malignants. So the Puritans named the extreme 
cavaliers. 

123:21. Poem. Co7nus. 

124: 10. Secular chain. The State control of the Church. 

124: 13. Licensing system. Milton wrote }x\s Areopagitica in 
favor of removing the censorship of the press. 

125 : 15. '' Nitor in adversum," etc. " I struggle against oppo- 
sition ; nor does the force which conquers other things conquer 
me, but I am borne against the swift-moving world." 

125 : 22. Burke. "The greatest prose writer of the eighteenth 
century." 

126 : 2. A sevenfold . . . symphonies. Set over against this 
the critical estimate of Mr. Mark Pattison : " In Eikonoclastes Milton 
is worse than tedious ; his reply is in a tone of rude railing and 
insolent swagger which would have been always unbecoming, but 
which at this moment was grossly indecent." 

126: 7. Iconoclast. Xn answer to Eikon Basilike,'^\.hQ. por- 
traiture of his sacred Majesty in his sohtude and sufferings." 

127 : 6. Daughters . . . privilege. They might have been 
glad of relief from what to them appeared drudgery. 

127 : 17. Boswellism. A word coined from the name of Bos- 
well, the author of the famous Life of Johnson, often called the 
best biography ever written. But Macaulay thought very meanly 
of Boswell and his unqualified admiration for Johnson. 

127 : 28. Massinger. An Elizabethan dramatist. 



A CONVERSATION 

BETWEEN MR. ABRAHAM COWLEY AND 1\IR. JOHN MILTON 
TOUCHING THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 

SET DOWN BY A GENTLEMAN OF THE IMIDDLE TEMPLE 

(^Knight's Quarterly Magazine, August, 1824) 

" Referre sermones Deorum et 
Magna modis tenuare parvis." — HORACE. 

I HAVE thought it good to set down in writing a memorable de- 
bate, wherein I was a Hstener, and two men of pregnant parts and 
great reputation discoursers ; hoping that my friends will not be 
displeased to have a record both of the strange times through which 
I have lived, and of the famous men with whom I have conversed. 
It chanced, in the warm and beautiful spring of the year 1665, a 
little before the saddest summer that ever London saw, that I went 
to the Bowling Green at Piccadilly, whither, at that time, the best 
gentry made continual resort. There I met Mr. Cowley, who had 
lately left Barnelms. There was then a house preparing for him at 
Chertsey ; and, till it should be finished, he had come up for a 
short time to London, that he might urge a suit to his Grace of 
Buckingham touching certain lands of her Majesty's, whereof he 
requested a lease. I had the honor to be familiarly acquainted 
with that worthy gentleman and most excellent poet, whose death 
hath been deplored with as general a consent of all Powers that 
deliglit in the woods, or in verse, or in love, as was of old that of 
Daphnis or of Gallus. 

139 



140 Appendix 



After some talk, which it is not material to set down at large, con- 
cerning his suit and his vexations at the court, where indeed his 
honesty did him more harm than his parts could do him good, I 
entreated him to dine with me at my lodging in the Temple, which 
he most courteously promised. And, that so eminent a guest 
might not lack a better entertainment than cooks or vintners can 
provide, I sent to the house of Mr. John Milton, in the Artillery- 
Walk, to beg that he would also be my guest. ' For, though he had 
been secretary, first to the Council of State, and, after that, to the 
Protector, and Mr. Cowley had held the same post under the Lord 
St, Albans in his banishment, I hoped, notwithstanding, that they 
would think themselves rather united by their common art than 
divided by their different factions. And so indeed it proved. 
For, while we sat at table, they talked freely of many men and 
things, as well ancient as modern, with much civility. Nay, 
Mr. Milton, who seldom tasted wine, both because of his singular 
temperance and because of his gout, did more than once pledge 
Mr. Cowley, who was indeed no hermit in diet. At last, being 
heated, Mr. Milton begged that I would open the windows. 
" Nay," said I, " if you desire fresh air and coolness, what should 
hinder us, as the evening is fair, from sailing for an hour on the 
river?" To this they both cheerfully consented; and forth we 
walked, Mr. Cowley and I leading Mr. Milton between us, to the 
Temple Stairs. There we took a boat; and thence we were rowed 
up the river. 

The wind was pleasant; the evening fine ; the sky, the earth and 
the water beautiful to look upon. But Mr. Cowley and I held our 
peace, and said nothing of the gay sights around us, lest we should 
too feelingly remind Mr. Milton of his calamity ; whereof, however, 
he needed no monitor; for soon he said sadly, "Ah, Mr. Cowley, 
you are a happy man. What would I now give but for one more 
look at the sun, and the waters, and the gardens of this fair city ! " 

" I know not," said Mr. Cowley, " whether we ought not rather 
to envy you for that which makes you to envy others : and that 



Appendix 141 

specially in this place, where all eyes which are not closed in blind- 
ness ought to become fountains of tears. What can we look upon 
which is not a memorial of change and sorrow, of fair things van- 
ished, and evil things done? When I see the gate of Whitehall, 
and the stately pillars of the Banqueting House, I cannot choose 
but think of what I have there seen in former days, masques, and 
pageants, and dances, and smiles, and the waving of graceful heads 
and the bounding of delicate feet. And then I turn to thoughts of 
other things, which even to remember makes me to blush and weep; 
— of the great black scaffold, and the axe and block, which were 
placed before those very windows ; and the voice seems to sound 
in mine ears, the lawless and terrible voice, which cried out that 
the head of a king was the head of a traitor. There stands West- 
minster Hall, which who can look upon, and not tremble to think 
how time, and change, and death confound the councils of the wise, 
and beat down the weapons of the mighty? How have I seen it 
surrounded with tens of thousands of petitioners crying for justice 
and privilege ! How have I heard it shake with fierce and proud 
words, which made the hearts of the people burn within them ! 
Then it is blockaded by dragoons, and cleared by pikemen. And 
they who have conquered their master go forth trembling at the 
word of their servant. And yet a little while, and the usurper 
comes forth from it, in his robe of ermine, with the golden staff in 
one hand and the Bible in the other, amidst the roaring of the guns 
and the shouting of the people. And yet again a little while, and 
the doors are thronged with multitudes in black, and the hearse 
and the plumes come forth; and the tyrant is borne, in more than 
royal pomp, to a royal sepulchre. A few days more, and his head 
is fixed to rot on the pinnacles of that very hall where he sat on a 
throne in his life, and lay in state after his death. When I think on 
all these things, to look round me makes me sad at heart. True 
it is that God hath restored to us our old laws, and the rightful line 
of our kings. Yet, how I know not, but it seems to me that some- 
thing is wanting — that our court hath not the old gravity, nor our 



142 Appendix 

people the old loyalty. These evil times, like the great deluge, 
have overwhelmed and confused all earthly things. And even as 
those waters, though at last they abated, yet, as the learned write, 
destroyed all trace of the garden of Eden, so that its place hath 
never since been found, so hath this opening of all the flood-gates 
of political evil effaced all marks of the ancient political paradise." 

" Sir, by your favor," said Mr. Milton, " though, from many cir- 
cumstances both of body and of fortune, I might plead fairer 
excuses for despondency than yourself, I yet look not so sadly 
either on the past or on the future. That a deluge hath passed 
over this our nation, I deny not. But I hold it not to be such a 
deluge as that of which you speak, but rather a blessed flood, like 
those of the Nile, which in its overflow, doth indeed wash away 
ancient landmarks and confound boundaries, and sweep away 
dwellings, yea, doth give birth to many foul and dangerous reptiles. 
Yet hence is the fulness of the granary, the beauty of the garden, 
the nurture of all living things. 

" I remember well, Mr. Cowley, what you have said concerning 
these things in your Discourse of the Government of Oliver 
Cromwell, which my friend Ellwood read to me last year. Truly, 
for elegance and rhetoric, that essay is to be compared with the 
finest tractates of Isocrates and Cicero. But neither that nor any 
other book, nor any events, which with most men have, more than 
any book, weight and authority, have altered my opinion, that, of all 
assemblies that ever were in this world, the best and the most 
useful was our Long Parliament. I speak not this as wishing to 
provoke debate ; which neither yet do I decline." 

Mr. Cowley was, as I could see, a little nettled. Yet, as he was 
a man of a kind disposition and a most refined courtesy, he put a 
force upon himself, and answered with more vehemence and quick- 
ness indeed than was his wont, yet not uncivilly. " Surely, Mr. Mil- 
ton, you speak not as you think. I am indeed one of those who 
believe that God hath reserved to himself the censure of kings, and 
that their crimes and oppressions are not to be resisted by the hands 



Appendix 143 



of their subjects. Yet can I easily find excuse for the violence of 
such as are stung to madness by grievous tyranny. But what shall 
we say for these men ? Which of their just demands was not 
granted ? Which even of their cruel and unreasonable requisitions, 
so as it were not inconsistent with all law and order, was refused ? 
Had they not sent Strafford to the block and Laud to the Tower? 
Had they not destroyed the Courts of the High Commission and the 
Star Chamber? Had they not reversed the proceedings confirmed 
by the voices of the judges of England, in the matter of ship-money? 
Had they not taken from the king his ancient and most lawful power 
touching the order of knighthood? Had, they not provided that, 
after their dissolution, triennial Parliaments should be holden, and 
that their own power should continue till of their great condescen- 
sion they should be pleased to resign it themselves? What more 
could they ask ? Was it not enough that they had taken from 
their king all his oppressive powers, and many that were most 
salutary? Was is not enough that they had filled his council-board 
with his enemies, and his prisons with his adherents? Was it not 
enough that they had raised a furious multitude, to shout and 
swagger daily under the very windows of his royal palace? Was 
it not enough that they had taken from him the most blessed 
prerogative of princely mercy ; that, complaining of intolerance 
themselves, they had denied all toleration to others ; that they had 
urged, against forms, scruples childish as those of any formalist; 
that they had persecuted the least remnant of the popish rites with 
the fiercest bitterness of the popish spirit? Must they besides 
all this have full power to command his armies, and to massacre 
his friends ? 

" For military command, it was never known in any monarchy, 
nay, in any well ordered republic, that it was committed to the 
debates of a large and unsettled assembly. For their other requisi- 
tion, that he should give up to their vengeance all who had de- 
fended the rights of his crown, his honor must have been ruined if 
he had complied. Is it not therefore plain that they desired these 



144 Appendix 

things only in order that, by refusing, his Majesty might give them 
a pretence for war ? 

" Men have often risen up against fraud, against cruelty, against 
rapine. But when before was it known that concessions were met 
with importunities, graciousness with insults, the open palm of 
bounty with the clenched fist of malice? Was it like trusty dele- 
gates of the Commons of England, and faithful stewards of their 
liberty and their wealth, to engage them for such causes in civil 
war, which both to liberty and to wealth is of all things the most 
hostile? Evil indeed must be the disease which is not more 
tolerable than such a medicine. Those who, even to save a nation 
from tyrants, excite it to civil war, do in general but minister to it 
the same miserable kind of relief wherewith the wizards of Pharaoh 
mocked the Egyptian. We read that, when Moses had turned 
their waters into blood, those impious magicians, intending, not 
benefit to the thirsting people, but vain and emulous ostentation of 
their own art, did themselves also change into blood the water 
which the plague had spared. Such sad comfort do those who 
stir up war minister to the oppressed. But here where was the 
oppression ? What was the favor which had not been granted ? 
What was the evil which had not been removed ? What further 
could they desire? " 

"These questions," said Mr. Milton, austerely, "have indeed 
often deceived the ignorant ; but that Mr. Cowley should have 
been so beguiled, I marvel. You ask what more the Parliament 
could desire ? I will answer you in one word, security. What are 
votes, and statutes, and resolutions ? They have no eyes to see, no 
hands to strike and avenge. They must have some safeguard from 
without. Many things, therefore, which in themselves were per- 
adventure hurtful, was this Parliament constrained to ask, lest 
otherwise good laws and precious rights should be without defence. 
Nor did they want a great and signal example of this danger. I 
need not remind you that, many years before, the two Houses had 
presented to the king the Petition of Right, wherein were set down 



Appendix 145 

all the most valuable privileges of the people of this realm. Did 
not Charles accept it? Did he not declare it to be law? Was it not 
as fully enacted as ever were any of those bills of the Long Parlia- 
ment concerning which you spoke ? And were those privileges 
therefore enjoyed more fully by the people? No : the king did from 
that time redouble his oppressions as if to avenge himself for the 
shame of having been compelled to renounce them. Then were 
our estates laid under shameful impositions, our houses ransacked, 
our bodies imprisoned. Then was the steel of the hangman blunted 
with mangling the ears of harmless men. Then our very minds 
were fettered, and the iron entered into our souls. Then we were 
compelled to hide our hatred, our sorrow, and our scorn, to laugh 
with hidden faces at the mummery of Laud, to curse under our 
breath the tyranny of Wentworth. Of old time it was well and 
nobly said, by one of our kings, that an Englishman ought to be 
free as his thoughts. Our prince reversed the maxim ; he strove 
to make our thoughts as much slaves as ourselves. To sneer at a 
Romish pageant, to miscall a lord's crest, were crimes for which 
there was no mercy. These were all the fruits which we gathered 
from those excellent laws of the former Parliament, from these 
solemn promises of the king. Were we to be deceived again? 
Were we again to give subsidies, and receive nothing but promises? 
Were we again to make wholesome statutes, and then leave them 
to be broken daily and hourly, until the oppressor should have 
squandered another supply, and should be ready for another per- 
jury ? You ask what they could desire which he had not already 
granted. Let me ask of you another question. What pledge could 
he give which he had not already violated? From the first year 
of his reign, whenever he had need of the purses of his Commons 
to support the revels of Buckingham or the processions of Laud, 
he had assured them that, as he was a gentleman and a king, he would 
sacredly preserve their rights. He had pawned those solemn 
pledges, and pawned them again and again ; but when had he 
redeemed them? ' Upon my faith,' — * Upon my sacred word,' — 

mac's ess. on MILTON — lO 



146 Appendix 



* Upon the honor of a prince,' — came so easily from his lips, and 
dwelt so short a time on his mind, that they were as little to be 
trusted as the * By these hilts ' of an Alsatian dicer. 

" Therefore it is that I praise this Parliament for what else I 
might have condemned. If what he had granted had been granted 
graciously and readily, if what he had before promised had been 
faithfully observed, they could not be defended. It was because 
he had never yielded the worst abuse without a long struggle, and 
seldom without a large bribe ; it was because he had no sooner 
disentangled himself from his troubles than he forgot his promises; 
and, more like a villainous huckster than a great king, kept both 
the prerogative and the large price which had been paid to him to 
forego it ; it was because of these things that it was necessary and 
just to bind with forcible restraints one who could be bound neither 
by law nor honor. Nay, even while he was making those very 
concessions of which you speak, he betrayed his deadly hatred 
against the people and their friends. Not only did he, contrary 
to all that ever was deemed lawful in England, order that members 
of the Commons' House of Parliament should be impeached of high 
treason at the bar of the Lords; thereby violating both the trial by 
jury and the privileges of the House, but, not content with breaking 
the law by his ministers, he went himself armed to assail it. In the 
birth-place and sanctuary of freedom, in the House itself, nay, in 
the very chair of the speaker, placed for the protection of free 
speech and privilege, he sat, rolling his eyes round the benches, 
searching for those whose blood he desired, and singling out his 
opposers to the slaughter. This most foul outrage fails. Then 
again for the old arts. Then come gracious messages. Then 
come courteous speeches. Then is again mortgaged his often 
forfeited honor. He will never again violate the laws. He will 
respect their rights as if they were his own. He pledges the 
dignity of his crown ; that crown which had been committed to 
him for the weal of his people, and which he never named, but 
that he might the more easily delude and oppress them. 



Appendix 147 

" The power of the sword, I grant you, was not one to be per- 
manently possessed by Parliament. Neither did that Parliament 
demand it as a permanent possession. They asked it only for 
temporary security. Nor can I see on what conditions they could 
safely make peace with that false and wicked king, save such as 
would deprive him of all power to injure. 

" For civil war, that it is an evil I dispute not. But that it is the 
greatest of evils, that I stoutly deny. It doth indeed appear to the 
misjudging to be a worse calamity than bad government, because its 
miseries are collected together within a short space and time, and 
may easily at one view be taken in and perceived. But the mis- 
fortunes of nations ruled by tyrants, being distributed over many cen- 
turies and many places, as they are of greater weight and number, 
so are they of less display. When the Devil of tyranny hath gone 
into the body politic he departs not but with struggles, and foaming, 
and great convulsions. Shall he, therefore, vex it forever, lest, in 
going out, he for a moment tear and rend it ? Truly this argument 
touching the evils of war would better become my friend Ellwood, or 
some other of the people called Quakers, than a courtier and a cava- 
lier. It applies no more to this war than to all others, as well foreign 
as domestic, and, in this war, no more to the Houses than to the 
king; nay, not so much, since he by a little sincerity and moderation 
might have rendered that needless which their duty to God and 
man then enforced them to do." 

" Pardon me, Mr, Milton," said Mr. Cowley ; " I grieve to hear 
you speak thus of that good king. Most unhappy indeed he was, 
in that he reigned at a time when the spirit of the then living 
generation was for freedom, and the precedents of former ages for 
prerogative. His case was like to that of Christopher Columbus, 
when he sailed forth on an unknown ocean, and found that the 
compass, whereby he shaped his course, had shifted from the north 
pole whereto before it had constantly pointed. So it was with 
Charles. His compass varied ; and therefore he could not tack 
aright. If he had been an absolute king he would doubtless, like 



148 Appendix 



Titus Vespasian, have been called the delight of the human race. 
If he had been a Doge of Venice, or a Stadtholder of Holland, he 
would never have outstepped the laws. But he lived when our 
government had neither clear delinitions nor strong sanctions. Let, 
therefore, his faults be ascribed to the time. Of his virtues the 
praise is his own. 

" Never was there a more gracious prince, or a more proper gen- 
tleman. In every pleasure he was temperate, in conversation mild 
and grave, in friendship constant, to his servants liberal, to his 
queen faithful and loving, in battle brave, in sorrow and captivity 
resolved, in death most Christian and forgiving. 

" For his oppressions, let us look at the former history of this 
realm. James was never accounted a tyrant, Elizabeth is esteeined 
to have been the mother of her people. Were they less arbitrary? 
Did they never lay hands on the purses of their subjects but by Act 
of Parliament? Did they never confine insolent and disobedient 
men but in due course of law ? Was the court of Star Chamber 
less active? Were the ears of libellers more safe? I pray you, let 
not King Charles be thus dealt with. It was enough that in his life 
he was tried for an alleged breach of laws which none ever heard 
named till they were discovered for his destruction. Let not his 
fame be treated as was his sacred and anointed body. Let not 
his memory be tried by principles found out ex post facto. Let 
us not judge by the spirit of one generation a man whose disposi- 
tion had been formed by the temper and fashion of another." 

"Nay, but conceive me, Mr. Cowley," said Mr. Milton; 
" inasmuch as, at the beginning of his reign, he imitated those who 
had governed before him, I blame him not. To expect that kings 
will, of their own free choice, abridge their prerogative, were argu- 
ment of but slender wisdom. Whatever, therefore, lawless, unjust, 
or cruel, he either did or permitted during the first years of his reign, 
I pass by. But for what was done after that he had solemnly given 
his consent to the Petition of Right, where shall we find defence ? 
Let it be supposed, which yet I concede not, that the tyranny of his 



Appendix 149 

father and of Queen Elizabeth had been no less rigorous than was 
his. But had his father, had that queen, sworn, like him, to abstain 
from those rigors ? Had they, like him, for good and valuable con- 
sideration, aliened their hurtful prerogatives ? Surely not : from 
whatever excuse you can plead for him he had wholly excluded 
himself. The borders of countries, we know, are mostly the seats 
of perpetual wars and tumults. It was the same with the undefined 
frontiers, which of old separated privilege and prerogative. They 
were the debatable land of our polity. It was no marvel if, both on 
the one side and on the other, inroads were often made. But, when 
treaties have been concluded, spaces measured, lines drawn, land- 
marks set up, that which before might pass for innocent error or just 
reprisal becomes robbery, perjury, deadly sin. He knew not, you 
say, which of his powers were founded on ancient law, and which 
only on vicious example. But had he not read the Petition of 
Right? Had not proclamation been made from his throne: SoU 
fait conime il est desire ? 

" For his private virtues they are beside the question. Remem- 
ber you not," and Mr. Milton smiled, but somewhat sternly, " what 
Dr. Caius saith in the Merry Wives of Shakspeare? 'What shall 
the honest man do in my closet ? There is no honest man that 
shall come in my closet.' Even so say I. There is no good man 
who shall make us his slaves. If he break his word to his people, 
is it a sufficient defence that he keeps it to his companions? If he 
oppress and extort all day, shall he be held blameless because he 
prayeth at night and morning ? If he be insatiable in plunder and 
revenge, shall we pass it by because in meat and drink he is tem- 
perate? If he have lived like a tyrant, shall all be forgotten 
because he hath died like a martyr? 

" He was a man, as I think, who had so much semblance of 
virtues as might make his vices most dangerous. He was not a 
tyrant after our wonted English model. The second Richard, the 
second and fourth Edwards, and the eighth Harry, were men pro- 
fuse, gay, boisterous; lovers of women and of wine, of no outward 



150 Appendix 

sanctity or gravity. Charles was a ruler after the Italian fashion; 
grave, demure, of a solemn carriage, and a sober diet ; as constant 
at prayers as a priest, as heedless of oaths as an atheist." 

Mr. Cowley answered somewhat sharply : " I am sorry, sir, to 
hear you speak thus. I had hoped that the vehemence of spirit 
which was caused by these violent times had now abated. Yet, 
sure, Mr. Milton, whatever you may think of the character of King 
Charles, you will not still justify his murder." 

" Sir," said Mr. Milton, " I must have been of a hard and strange 
nature, if the vehemence which was imputed to me in my younger 
days had not been diminished by the afflictions wherewith it hath 
pleased Almighty God to chasten my age. I will not now defend 
all that I may heretofore have written. But this I say, that I per- 
ceive not wherefore a king should be exempted from all punish- 
ment. Is it just that where most is given least should be required? 
Or politic that where there is the greatest power to injure there 
should be no danger to restrain ? But, you will say, there is no 
such law. Such a law there is. There is the law of self-preserva- 
tion written by God himself on our hearts. There is the primal 
compact and bond of society, not graven on stone, nor sealed with 
wax, nor put down on parchment, nor set forth in any express form 
of words by men when of old they came together ; but implied in 
the very act that they so came together, presupposed in all subse- 
quent law, not to be repealed by any authority, not invalidated by 
being omitted in any code ; inasmuch as from thence are all codes 
and all authority. 

" Neither do I well see wherefore you cavaliers, and indeed, 
many of us whom you merrily call Round-heads, distinguish between 
those who fought against King Charles, and specially after the 
second commission given to Sir Thomas Fairfax, and those who con- 
demned him to death. Sure, if his person were inviolable, it was as 
wicked to lift the sword against it at Naseby as the axe at White- 
hall. If his life might justly be taken, why not in course of trial as 
well as by right of war ? 



Appendix ip 



" Thus much in general as touching the right. But, for the 
execution of King Charles in particular, I will not now undertake 
to defend it. Death is inflicted, not that the culprit may die, but 
that the State may be thereby advantaged. And, from all that I 
know, I think that the death of King Charles hath more hindered 
than advanced the liberties of England. 

" First, he left an heir. He was in captivity. The heir was in 
freedom. He was odious to the Scots. The heir was favored by 
them. To kill the captive, therefore, whereby the heir, in the 
apprehension of all royalists, became forthwith king — what was it, 
in truth, but to set their captive free, and to give him besides other 
great advantages ? 

" Next, it was a deed most odious to the people, and not only to 
your party, but to many among ourselves ; and, as it is perilous 
for any government to outrage the public opinion, so most was it 
perilous for a government which had from that opinion alone its 
birth, its nurture, and its defence. 

" Yet doth not this properly belong to our dispute ; nor can 
these faults be justly charged upon that most renowned Parliament. 
For, as you know, the high court of justice was not established 
until the House had been purged of such members as were adverse 
to the army, and brought wholly under the control of the chief 
officers." 

"And who," said Mr. Cowley, "levied that army? Who com- 
missioned those officers ? Was not the fate of the Commons as 
justly deserved as was that of Diomedes, who was devoured by 
those horses whom he had himself taught to feed on the flesh and 
blood of men ? How could they hope that others would respect 
laws which they had themselves insulted ; that swords which had 
been drawn against the prerogatives of the king would be put up 
at an ordinance of the Commons? It was believed, of old, that there 
were some devils easily raised but never to be laid ; insomuch that, 
if a magician called them up, he should be forced to find them 
always some employment; for, though they would do all his bid- 



152 Appendix 

ding, yet, if he left them but for one moment without some work 
of evil to perform, they would turn their claws against himself. 
Such a fiend is an army. They who evoke it cannot dismiss it. 
They are at once its masters and its slaves. Let them not fail to 
find for it task after task of blood and rapine. Let them not leave 
it for a moment in repose, lest it tear them in pieces. 

" Thus was it with that famous assembly. They formed a force 
which they could neither govern nor resist. They made it power- 
ful. They made it fanatical. As if military insolence were not of 
itself sufficiently dangerous, they heightened it with spiritual pride, 
— they encouraged their soldiers to rave from the tops of tubs 
against the men of Belial, till every trooper thought himself a 
prophet. They taught them to abuse popery, till every drummer 
fancied that he was as infallible as a pope. 

" Then it was that religion changed her nature. She was no 
longer the parent of arts and letters, of wholesome knowledge, of 
innocent pleasures, of blessed household smiles. In their place came 
sour faces, whining voices, the chattering of fools, the yells of mad- 
men. Then men fasted from meat and drink, who fasted not from 
bribes and blood. Then men frowned at stage-plays, who smiled at 
massacres. Then men preached against painted faces, who felt no 
remorse for their own most painted lives. Religion had been a pole- 
star to light and to guide. It was now more like to that ominous star 
in the book of the Apocalypse, which fell from heaven upon the 
fountains and rivers and changed them into wormwood; for even 
so did it descend from its high and celestial dwelling-place to 
plague this earth, and to turn into bitterness all that was sweet, and 
into poison all that was nourishing. 

" Therefore it was not strange that such things should follow. 
They who had closed the barriers of London against the king could 
not defend them against their own creatures. They who had so 
stoutly cried for privilege, when that prince, most unadvisedly no 
doubt, came among them to demand their members, durst not wag 
their fingers when Oliver filled their hall with soldiers, gave their 



Appendix 153 

mace to a corporal, put their keys in his pocket, and drove them 
forth with base terms, borrowed half from the conventicle and half 
from the ale-house. Then were we, like the trees of the forest in 
holy writ, given over to the rule of the bramble ; then from the 
basest of the shrubs came forth the fire which devoured the cedars 
of Lebanon. We bowed down before a man of mean birth, of 
ungraceful demeanor, of stammering and most vulgar utterance, 
of scandalous and notorious hypocrisy. Our laws were made and 
unmade at his pleasure ; the constitution of our Parliaments 
changed by his writ and proclamation ; our persons imprisoned ; 
our property plundered ; our lands and houses overrun with 
soldiers ; and the great charter itself was but argument for a scur- 
rilous jest ; and for all this we may thank that Parliament : for 
never, unless they had so violently shaken the vessel, could such 
foul dregs have risen to the top." 

Then answered Mr. Milton : " What you have now said com- 
prehends so great a number of subjects, that it would require, not 
an evening's sail on the Thames, but rather a voyage to the Indies, 
accurately to treat of all : yet, in as few words as I may, I will explain 
my sense of these matters. 

" First, as to the army. An army, as you have well set forth, is 
always a weapon dangerous to those who use it : yet he who falls 
among thieves spares not to fire his musquetoon, because he may 
be slain if it burst in his hand. Nor must States refrain from de- 
fending themselves, lest their defenders should at last turn against 
them. Nevertheless, against this danger statesmen should carefully 
provide ; and, that they may do so, they should take especial care 
that neither the officers nor the soldiers do forget that they are also 
citizens. I do believe that the English army would have continued 
to obey the Parliament with all duty, but for one act, which, as it 
was in intention, in seeming, and in immediate effect, worthy to be 
compared with the most famous in history, so was it, in its final 
consequence, most injurious. I speak of that ordinance called the 
self-denying, and of the new model of the army. By those measures 



1 54 Appendix 

the Commons gave up the command of their forces into the hands 
of men who were not of themselves. Hence, doubtless, derived no 
small honor to that noble assembly, which sacrificed to the hope of 
public good the assurance of private advantage. And, as to the 
conduct of the war, the scheme prospered. Witness the battle of 
Naseby, and the memorable exploits of Fairfax in the west. But 
thereby the Parliament lost that hold on the soldiers and that power 
to control them, which they retained while every regiment was 
commanded by their own members. Politicians there be, who 
would wholly divide the legislative from the executive power. In 
the golden age this may have succeeded ; in the millennium it may 
succeed again. But, where great armies and great taxes are re- 
quired, there the executive government must always hold a great 
authority, which authority, that it may not oppress and destroy the 
legislature, must be in some manner blended with it. The leaders 
of foreign mercenaries have always been most dangerous to a 
country. The officers of native armies, deprived of the civil 
privileges of other men, are as much to be feared. This was the 
great error of that Parliament ; and, though an error it were, it 
was an error generous, virtuous, and more to be deplored than 
censured. 

" Hence came the power of the army and its leaders, and 
especially of that most famous leader, whom both in our conversa- 
tion to-day, and in that discourse whereon I before touched, you 
have, in my poor opinion, far too roughly handled. Wherefore 
you speak contemptibly of his parts I know not ; but I suspect 
that you are not free from the error common to studious and 
speculative men. Because Oliver was an ungraceful orator, and 
never said, either in public or private, anything memorable, you 
will have it that he was of a mean capacity. Sure this is unjust. 
Many men have there been ignorant of letters, without wit, without 
eloquence, who yet had the wisdom to devise, and the courage to 
perform, that which they lacked language to explain. Such men 
often, in troubled times, have worked out the deUverance of nations 



Appendix 155 

and their own greatness, not by logic, not by rhetoric, but by wari- 
ness in success, by calmness in danger, by fierce and stubborn reso- 
lution in all adversity. The hearts of men are their books ; events 
are their tutors ; great actions are their eloquence : and such an 
one, in my judgment, was his late Highness, who, if none were to 
treat his name scornfully now who shook not at the sound of it 
while he lived, would, by very few, be mentioned otherwise than 
with reverence. His own deeds shall avouch him for a great 
statesman, a great soldier, a true lover of his country, a merciful 
and generous conqueror. 

" For his faults, let us reflect that they who seem to lead are 
oftentimes most constrained to follow. They who will mix with 
men, and specially they who will govern them, must, in many things, 
obey them. They who will yield to no such conditions may be 
hermits, but cannot be generals and statesmen. If a man will walk 
straight forward without turning to the right or the left, he must 
walk in a desert, and not in Cheapside. Thus was he enforced to 
do many things which jumped not with his inclination nor made 
for his honour ; because the army, on which alone he could depend 
for power and life, might not otherwise be contented. And I, for 
mine own part, marvel less that he sometimes was fain to indulge 
their violence than that he could so often restrain it. 

" In that he dissolved the Parliament, I praise him. It then 
was so diminished in numbers, as well by the death as by the exclu- 
sion of members, that it was no longer the same assembly ; and, 
if at that time it had made itself perpetual, we should have been 
governed, not by an English House of Commons, but by a Venetian 
Council. 

" If in his following rule he overstepped the laws, I pity rather 
than condemn him. He may be compared to that INIgeandrius of 
Samos, of whom Herodotus saith, in his Thalia, that, wishing to 
be of all men the most just, he was not able ; for after the death 
of Polycrates he offered freedom to the people ; and not till certain 
of them threatened to call him to a reckoning for what he had 



156 Appendix 

formerly done, did he change his purpose, and make himself a 
tyrant, lest he should be treated as a criminal. 

" Such was the case of Oliver. He gave to his country a form 
of government so free and admirable that, in near six thousand 
years, human wisdom hath never devised any more excellent con- 
trivance for human happiness. To himself he reserved so little 
power that it would scarcely have sufficed for his safety, and it is a 
marvel that it could suffice for his ambition. When, after that, he 
found that the members of his Parliament disputed his right even 
to that small authority which he had kept, when he might have 
kept all, then indeed I own that he began to govern by the sword 
those who would not suffer him to govern by the law. 

" But, for the rest, what sovereign was ever more princely in 
pardoning injuries, in conquering enemies, in extending the 
dominions and the renown of his people? What sea, what shore 
did he not mark with imperishable memorials of his friendship or 
his vengeance? The gold of Spain, the steel of Sweden, the ten 
thousand sails of Holland, availed nothing against him. While 
every foreign state trembled at our arms, we sat secure from all 
assault. War, which often so strangely troubles both husbandry 
and commerce, never silenced the song of our reapers, or the sound 
of our looms. Justice was equally administered ; God was freely 
worshipped. 

" Now look at that which we have taken in exchange. With 
the restored king have come over to us vices of every sort, and 
most the basest and most shameful, — lust without love — servitude 
without loyalty — foulness of speech — dishonesty of dealing — grin- 
ning contempt of all things good and generous. The throne is sur- 
rounded by men whom the former Charles would have spurned 
from his footstool. The altar is served by slaves whose knees are 
supple to every being but God. Rhymers, whose books the hang- 
man should burn, pandars, actors, and buffoons, these drink a 
health and throw a main with the King ; these have stars on their 
breasts and gold sticks in their hands ; these shut out from his 



Appendix 1 57 

presence the best and bravest of those who bled for his house. 
Even so doth God visit those who know not how to value freedom. 
He gives them over to the tyranny which they have desired, '"im 
iravTcs €Travpcx}VTai /SaaiX^os.' " 

" I will not," said Mr. Cowley, " dispute with you on this argu- 
ment. But, if it be as you say, how can you maintain that England 
hath been so greatly advantaged by the rebellion?" 

" Understand me rightly. Sir," said Mr. Milton. " This nation 
is not given over to slavery and vice. We tasted indeed the fruits 
of liberty before they had well ripened. Their flavor was harsh and 
bitter ; and we turned from them wdth loathing to the sweeter 
poisons of servitude. This is but for a time. England is sleeping 
on the lap of Delilah, traitorously chained, but not yet shorn of 
strength. Let the cry be once heard — the Philistines be upon 
thee ; and at once that sleep will be broken, and those chains will 
be as flax in the fire. The great Parliament hath left behind it in 
our hearts and minds a hatred of tyrants, a just knowledge of our 
rights, a scorn of vain and deluding names ; and that the revellers 
of Whitehall shall surely find. The sun is darkened; but it is only 
for a moment ; it is but an eclipse ; though all birds of evil omen 
have begun to scream, and all ravenous beasts have gone forth to 
prey, thinking it to be midnight. Woe to them if they be abroad 
when the rays again shine forth ! 

" The king hath judged ill. Had he been wise he w^ould have 
remembered that he owed his restoration only to confusions which 
had wearied us out, and made us eager for repose. He would have 
known that the folly and perfidy of a prince would restore to the good 
old cause many hearts which had been alienated thence by the tur- 
bulence of factions ; for, if I know aught of history, or of the heart 
of man, he will soon learn that the last champion of the people was 
not destroyed when he murdered Vane, nor seduced when he be- 
guiled Fairfax." 

Mr. Cowley seemed to me not to take much amiss what Mr. 
Milton had said touching that thankless court, which had indeed 



158 Appendix 

but poorly requited his own good service. He only said, therefore, 
" Another rebellion ! Alas ! alas ! Mr. Milton ! If there be no 
choice but between despotism and anarchy, I prefer despotism." 

" Many men," said Mr. Milton, " have floridly and ingeniously 
compared anarchy and despotism ; but they who so amuse them- 
selves do but look at separate parts of that which is truly one great 
whole. Each is the cause and the effect of the other ; the evils of 
either are the evils of both. Thus do states move on in the same 
eternal cycle, which, from the remotest point, brings them back 
again to the same sad starting-post : and, till both those who 
govern and those who obey shall learn and mark this great truth, 
men can expect little through the future, as they have known little 
through the past, save vicissitudes of extreme evils, alternately pro- 
ducing and produced. 

" When will rulers learn that, where liberty is not, security and 
order can never be ? We talk of absolute power ; but all power 
hath limits, which, if not fixed by the moderation of the governors, 
will be fixed by the force of the governed. Sovereigns may send 
their opposers to dungeons ; they may clear out a senate-house 
with soldiers ; they may enlist armies of spies ; they may hang 
scores of the disaffected in chains at every cross road ; but what 
power shall stand in that frightful time when rebellion hath become 
a less evil than endurance? Who shall dissolve that terrible tribu- 
nal, which, in the hearts of the oppressed, denounces against the 
oppressor the doom of its wild justice? Who shall repeal the law 
of self-defence ? What arms or discipline shall resist the strength 
of famine and despair? How often were the ancient Caesars dragged 
from their golden palaces, stripped of their purple robes, mangled, 
stoned, defiled with filth, pierced with hooks, hurled into Tiber ? 
How often have the Eastern Sultans perished by the sabres of their 
own janissaries, or the bow-strings of their own mutes ? For no 
power which is not limited by laws can ever be protected by them. 
Small, therefore, is the wisdom of those who would fly to servitude 
as if it were a refuge from commotion j for anarchy is the sure 



Appendix 159 



consequence of tyranny. That governments may be safe, nations 
must be free. Their passions must have an outlet provided, lest 
they make one. 

" When I was at Naples, I went with Signer Manso, a gentleman 
of excellent parts and breeding, who had been the familiar friend 
of that famous poet Torquato Tasso, to see the burning mountain 
Vesuvius. I wondered how the peasants could venture to dwell 
so fearlessly and cheerfully on its sides, when the lava was flowing 
from its summit ; but Manso smiled, and told me that when the 
fire descends freely they retreat before it without haste or fear. 
They can tell how fast it will move, and how far ; and they know, 
moreover, that, though it may work some little damage, it will soon 
cover the fields over which it hath passed with rich vineyards and 
sweet flowers. But, when the flames are pent up in the mountain, 
then it is that they have reason to fear ; then it is that the earth 
sinks and the sea swells; then cities are swallowed up; and their 
place knoweth them no more. So it is in politics : where the people 
is most closely restrained, there it gives the greatest shocks to 
peace and order ; therefore would I say to all kings, let your 
demagogues lead crowds, lest they lead armies ; let them bluster, 
lest they massacre ; a little turbulence is, as it were, the rainbow 
of the state ; it shows indeed that there is a passing shower ; but 
it is a pledge that there shall be no deluge." 

" This is true," said Mr. Cowley : " yet these admonitions are 
not less needful to subjects than to sovereigns." 

" Surely," said Mr. Milton ; " and, that I may end this long 
debate with a few words in which we shall both agree, I hold that, 
as freedom is the only safeguard of governments, so are order and 
moderation generally necessary to preserve freedom. Even the 
vainest opinions of men are not to be outraged by those who pro- 
pose to themselves the happiness of men for their end, and who 
must work with the passions of men for their means. The blind 
reverence for things ancient is indeed so foolish that it might make 
a wise man laugh, if it were not also sometimes so mischievous that 



i6o Appendix 



it would rather make a good man weep. Yet, since it may not be 
wholly cured, it must be discreetly indulged ; and therefore those 
who would amend evil laws should consider rather how much it may 
be safe to spare, than how much it may be possible to change. 
Have you not heard that men who have been shut up for many years 
in dungeons shrink if they see the light, and fall down if their irons 
be struck off ? And so, when nations have long been in the house 
of bondage, the chains which have crippled them are necessary to 
support them, the darkness which hath weakened their sight is 
necessary to preserve it. Therefore release them not too rashly, 
lest they curse their freedom and pine for their prison. 

" I think, indeed, that the renowned Parliament, of which we 
have talked so much, did show, until it became subject to the 
soldiers, a singular and admirable moderation, in such times 
scarcely to be hoped, and most worthy to be an example to all 
that shall come after. But on this argument I have said enough : 
and I will therefore only pray to Almighty God that those who 
shall, in future times, stand forth in defence of our liberties, as well 
civil as religious, may adorn the good cause by mercy, prudence, 
and soberness, to the glory of His name and the happiness and 
honor of the English people." 

And so ended that discourse ; and not long after we were set on 
shore again at the Temple-gardens, and there parted company ; 
and the same evening I took notes of what had been said, which I 
have here more fully set down, from regard both to the fame of the 
men, and the importance of the subject-matter. 



DEC 29 1903 



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